Two jackets, two jumpers, two shirts

The cold has arrived. And with it snow, not an especially common form of precipitation in Orkney, although Harray is perhaps more prone to the white stuff than other parts of Mainland. A lot of snow. Snow drifting today so that vehicular access to the house from The Shunan end would be a no go. We watched our farmer neighbour clearing the snow from the other road though so there is a way in and out if need be.

Snow views from nearby.

Brown Hare trail.

Harray kirk.

Jack Snipe remains, I think.

As we walked down the hill to our Wee Wood we flushed a Sparrowhawk. On the way back the hound was sniffing in the wood and I found these remains, Jack Snipe I think. A ringer's measurement would make the wing 110mm which is outside the range for Snipe.

 The walk also produced, Merlin, Grey Heron, Reed Bunting and Meadow Pipit.

Before the snow came I've been searching for moth larvae again. Beating some Gorse I again found Cydia ulicelana, but also quite a few very small beetles. I groaned when they turned out to belong to the Cryptophagidae, fungus beetles, as I've found these very hard to ID in the past. Fortunately, Mike Hackston's keys to the rescue, and with a bit of careful examination they came out to Micrambe and pretty swiftly to Micrambe ulicis which lives in Gorse. (Thanks to CW for confirming the ID.)

Micrambe ulicis.

Cydia ulicelana, cat and a load of frass.

The caterpillar is now in a rearing jar with at least one pupa.

We'd also visited Hobbister before the snow. Mostly because we needed to drop off the lawn mower at the repair shop. The mower being in a very sad state. No cetaceans this time but a bit of delving around found a nice Pseudo-scorpion or two and a Lithobius caterpillar which I will need to find time to key out.

Lithobius sp, I need to key this out, a bit unfortunate that the antennae are both broken as I think segment number is an identification factor.

Neobisium carcinoides, a pseudo-scorpion.

If Neobisium carcinoides was a large beastie it would be terrifying, fortunately it is a small thing of a few millimetres.

A bit of moth hunting before the snow produced a very nice Mottled Umber female in the Wee Wood, I think this is a new species for the square.

Mottled Umber, female.

The following nite there were ten Winter Moths around the garden, including four pairs in-cop, the most females I've ever seen in one night I think.

Winter Moths, in-cop.

Finally, a couple of armchair ticks. BH spotted that one of my micro-moths on iRecord was misidentified, a good job someone is on the ball! I'd been too hasty with my ID and the moth from June in Finstown was actually Falseuncaria ruficiliana, not Eupoecilia angustana, thank you BH. I need to correct this ID in this blog I think.

The other armchair tick was Scrobipalpa acuminatella which I'd got right , but entered on iRecord as "Likely" (so not tickable). But SP from the Graciliidae Scheme verified my record from my photos, good result!

So a couple of ticks for the PSL list. The site looks fab', now it has been incorporated into Bubo Listing, good job folks. But I'm still a long way off getting my list up-to-date.

Lastly a petition to sign. Coul Links is again under threat from a potential golf course development which would destroy it. We've enough fucking golf courses, there's only one Coul Links! Please sign it's a fabulous place. Highland Council want to approve the planning application despite objections from numerous bodies and its own planning officers. We need the Scottish Government to step in and stop this act of vandalism. Thanks.

https://greens.scot/SaveCoulLinks