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Spring update from the East Coast

Habitat work, volunteer days, and a hunt for an incredibly rare beastie. Find out what's happening on the East Coast!

From large-scale habitat works on the Moray Coast to a call for volunteers to help find one of Scotland’s rarest invertebrates, read on to find out what we’ve been up to on the East Coast and how you can get involved.

Large-scale habitat works for the Small Blue 🦋

As we enter the final year of Species on the Edge we have been busy tackling some large-scale habitat works in what has been our final full season of winter habitat management. The largest of these was at Scottish Wildlife Trust’s (SWT) Spey Bay Reserve, near Kingston on the Moray Coast. Here we had a JCB contractor join us on site for a week-long task of removing scrub, mostly gorse from the reserve, and creating a serious of butterfly scrapes. A whopping one and a half hectares of gorse was removed and the JCB digger driver, Keith, very skilfully worked with the natural topography of the site to create sheltered scallops and enhance embankments, creating multiple south facing aspects for both Small Blue and Dingy Skipper. In recent years Spey Bay has been prone to flooding and numbers of Small Blue have been declining on the transect; hopefully by seeding this newly-created habitat we can encourage Small Blue to breed at a level that is above sea level rather than below it!

Spey Bay – from this
to this!

Work-party time 🕺

October to March saw us full steam ahead with habitat work up here on the north-east of Scotland. Tracy was blown away by the energy and enthusiasm of our amazing volunteers, with over 100 attendees at this season’s winter work parties.

We once again had two excellent days where we teamed up with the local RSPB team and their volunteers for some gorse clearing at the furthest out point on Culbin Bar; we really do take our hats off to our volunteers who are prepared to walk these distances over shingle, salt marsh and sand dunes for miles, and that is before we even do any work! Gareth, RSPB, and Tracy are currently hatching a plan to have a Small Blue picnic out on the Bar on the 9th of June, so keep an eye on our events page for further information. This is a great chance to walk out and see the amazing flora and fauna of the sandbar and take pride in the difference your effort is making to our vulnerable species.

Another site worthy of a mention is Ardersier. It has been great to watch the community here become more and more interested in Small Blue and turning up in their numbers to help with habitat work. Highlife Highland Ranger, John, is a key component in this, helping to inspire the community with energy, knowledge, and fascinating local stories. This is what Species on the Edge is all about, helping to bind local people, businesses, places and nature together ensuring lasting legacy for all. We can’t wait to see what the future holds for Ardersier Common!

Volunteers at Ardersier

Last month we made it along the Moray Coast to carry out some habitat work at the old Kingston Rifle Ranges now part of Forestry and Land Scotland Lossiemouth. This is an important site on this section of the coastline, with both Small Blue and Dingy Skipper doing well here. It is hoped that by clearing scrub and by seeding along the shoreline, Small Blue will be better able to move along this section of coast and boosts numbers at the neighbouring Scottish Wildlife Trust reserve. We have formed a good working relationship with the FLS environment team and it was great to see three members of their team out working alongside our volunteers to make this an area of bigger, better and more joined-up habitat for our priority species.

Can you help us find the Bordered Brown Lacewing? 🔍

Our East Coast Buglife Officer, Fiona Basford, is asking residents of the East Coast to help us find one of Scotland’s rarest invertebrates – the Bordered Brown Lacewing. There are various ways people can help:

  1. Looking for and reporting sightings of Wood Sage (Teucrium scorodonia), a plant strongly associated with the Bordered Brown Lacewing. Wood Sage has crinkly, sage-green leaves. In flower – July to September – it has straw-coloured flowers growing on leafless spikes.  
  2. Helping to survey potential Bordered Brown Lacewing habitat.
  3. Looking for the beastie itself.

Anyone who finds Wood Sage can submit their sighting using the iRecord app or via irecord.org.uk. Those keen to get involved in habitat surveys or looking for the Bordered Brown Lacewing are invited to get in touch with Fiona: Fiona.Basford@buglife.org.uk. Fiona will provide further information including important health and safety information and survey forms.  

Could this be the year that makes YOU famous as the volunteer who finds the next Bordered Brown Lacewing population on the north-east coast?!

Wood Sage (c) Caitlin McLeod
Bordered brown lacewing
Bordered brown lacewing (c) Nick Littlewood

Following a presentation by Tracy in Inverness, the Highland Biological Recording Group (HBRG) requested further information on this tiny and extremely under-recoded lacewing. An abbreviated article has been emailed to HBRG members to encourage a survey push this year and a full length article has been written for HBRG’s new website. The new website now features distribution map links to all SotE species found in the Highland area. The website is still under development but is well worth a look: https://hbrg.org.uk/project-underrecorded-species/

Looking ahead 👀

We are currently in the process of RAG rating all our East Coast species sites and writing reports for volunteers so we can best inform where we need your help going forward. Tracy and her band of merry helpers are in the process of setting up several Small Blue and Northern Brown Argus WhatsApp and email groups to better coordinate volunteer action along the coast. So once again, whether habitat work parties are your thing or species surveying is your preference, please make sure we know who you are and how you want to help build the future for Small Blue and Northern Brown Argus. Email tmunro@butterfly-conservation.org.

Dates for your diary:

Events

Small Blue Week: 30th May – 6th June. Join us for a variety of events across the week from the Species on the Edge North and East Coast teams:

Other events:

Surveys

Enjoy some sunshine and happy species hunting!

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