Delightful Dalavil

Last week I finished work and headed down to Sleat, arriving sometime after 11pm and then kipping overnight in the car. The simmer dim is almost upon us here on Skye and, thanks to the cloudless northern horizon and a large moon, it was still bright enough at midnight to make falling asleep awkward. I really do need to start using my tent again. Either that or I'll have to buy myself an eye mask.

I awoke early and entered Dalavil, a magical valley that runs down to the sea. Today I was aiming for a patch of woodland two miles into the glen in search of some rather special butterflies.

To briefly recap; it was this time last year that a local birder asked a bunch of us for advice. He wanted to break into butterflies and moths, did we know any good sites with suggestions of what to look for at each. Amongst others, Dalavil was suggested. He casually wandered in and immediately found a colony of Chequered Skippers entirely new to Skye. Talk about beginner's luck! A few of us subsequently visited and found yet more Chequered Skippers and I knocked up a rather crude map of our sightings. This year I planned to put a bit more effort into trying to figure the full extent of the colony and to hazard a guess at numbers. Today was that day. It was also the hottest day of the year so far and I ended up absolutely sunburnt to buggery. And covered in mud, but more on that later.

Approaching the deer-fenced area of Coille Dalavil SSSI

The wooded area on the foreground slope is the area that holds the Chequered Skippers. What I didn't expect was to encounter the first ones out on the open heathland half a mile earlier

My first Chequered Skipper of the day, netted and potted for a pic then immediately released

By the time I reached the deer fence I had recorded three male Chequered Skippers, each of them sunning themselves in the rapidly warming sunshine. I took a meandering path through the meadows and lower slopes, then entered the woodland proper where I concentrated on the pathside vegetation and sunlit glades. Eventually I dropped down to the loch edge and open grassland before beginning my trek back towards the car several hours later. 

Freshly emerged males with not a scale out of place!

I always associate Chequered Skippers with Bluebells, and this largely held true at Dalavil. But several were way out on the valley floor, seemingly a long way from any flowers never mind Bluebells. One plant that was present throughout was Purple Moor-grass (Molinia). This is the larval foodplant, as such I'm somewhat bemused that Chequered Skipper isn't Skye's commonest butterfly for Molinia grows pretty much everywhere! Clearly the butterfly has further requirements that I'm not aware of. Bluebells are a favoured source of nectar and are having a simply stupendous showing this year. I repeatedly watched the skippers slip their proboscis between the overlapping petals which surprised me (I'd always assumed the petals were fused into a solid tube but clearly this isn't the case at all).

My first Painted Ladies of the year

Other inverts of interest included three Painted Ladies (good numbers have been arriving further south, primary migrants from overseas), a single Small Pearl-bordered Fritillary (common here, but this is right at the very start of their flight season), a few Beautiful Demoiselles (very range-restricted on Skye) and a couple each of Silver Hook and Argent & Sable moths. 

Assorted invert yearticks. I think the Horse Leech may in fact be a Skye tick for me.

Eventually I finished wandering the area I had planned to survey. The good news is that Chequered Skipper occurs throughout, in fact with a bit less heat and a lot more liquid refreshment, I could have continued further down the glen and surveyed that as well. My grand total was of 25 Chequered Skippers at 18 sites, and that's an absolute minimum number of individuals because I chose to move on rather than unintentionally count an individual twice. Many were feeding unobtrusively on flowerheads or settled on stems ready to chase away any incoming rivals, undoubtedly I missed more than I saw. Almost all skippers seen were males, these are far more flighty than the females and I suspect they emerge first too. My plan is to return in a couple of weeks and do it all again, but this time extend my search area further into the surrounding grasslands east of the main area. Or what I thus far perceive to be the main area. For now, I have discovered that Chequered Skippers occur in an area one mile long by 300 metres wide. My suspicion is that they fill the lower reaches of the glen, meaning the colony could be nearer three miles long and half a mile wide, but only further searches will show that to be true or otherwise. I may actually camp out in the woods next time. 

The assistant BSBI Recorder for Skye has asked me to collect a Carex from the lochside which is currently defying identification. It may be a hybrid, or it may simply be too early in the season to be properly identifiable. Either way it should be doable by mid-June, so I'll add that area to my search zone. 

There is an old (1994 I think) record for Spring-sedge from Dalavil. I went and had a look and sure enough it's still there, though already past its best.

Spring-sedge, the first time I've seen this species outside of Wiltshire

There is also a 1977 record for Lesser Water-plantain which I thought I might as well have a look for. This, it transpired, did not work out quite so well for me...

Arse. And no sign of the plant either.

I actually had to forcefully lever my feet out of the wellies, the trapped water within had created some sort of a vacuum. I then wandered back to the river, sat on the bank and washed my socks and jeans in the flowing water. Being a bit of a dolt I didn't think to wash the wellies out too, they remained under a tree with my rucksack whilst I concentrated on getting to and from the river without standing on any Adders. Hence my feet were once again covered in mud by the time I made it back to the car some two miles uphill. The socks went straight into the first roadside bin I encountered. Back at the hotel I discovered that the water pump had tripped, hence my much-needed shower was reduced to the merest cold trickle. It's been a long time since I was skinny enough that I had to run around in the shower just to get wet, but tonight I had to do precisely that. I dressed, fixed the pump and began my evening shift with muddy dirt still beneath my toenails. The following day I had an infected big toe. Three days of squeezing pus from the side of the toenail did the job and, so far at least, I appear to have averted the need for amputation. And I'm doing it all again in a fortnight's time...yay.  

The general consensus between we Skye naturalists is that Chequered Skipper almost undoubtedly occurs in other glens on the Sleat Peninsular. The hills above Armadale are an obvious start point for further searches. There's no real reason that it wouldn't occur in other parts of Skye too. I fancy Talisker Bay area as being likely, maybe the peninsular north of Elgol too. Old Corry, if it's not too sheep grazed, could also be suitable. Hopefully we can build a fuller understanding of Chequered Skipper distribution on Skye in the coming years, something to look forward to.