Mountain Ringlet Surveys 2009

[Andrew Masterman]

The Mountain Ringlet (Erebia epiphron) is a rare UK butterfly being confined to montane habitat between 350 & 900 m in the central highlands from Ben Lomond in the south to Creag Meagaidh /Glen Roy in the north and from Glasdrum NNR/Glencoe, Argyll in the west to Schiehallion in central Perthshire in the east with two known colonies further east in the Cairngorms National Park: Glen Doll & Glen Feshie. This distribution amounts to just 50 10 km squares in Scotland which makes it much rarer than the iconic birds of the Scottish mountains such as the Ptarmigan & the Golden Eagle. The Mountain Ringlet is also found in parts of the Lake District.

Volunteers are required in 2009 to look for Mountain Ringlet within its known range in Scotland and also to do some vegetation surveys within and outside its known range to confirm that it is the combination of lush Mat-grass grassland and abundant flowering plants which explains the limited distribution of the Mountain Ringlet.

Full details of the survey including a list of 1 km squares which need to be surveyed can be found at:

Mountain Ringlet Surveys 2009

The flight period of the Mountain Ringlet is from late June to early August with the first two weeks of July being the peak. However, the vegetation survey can be done whilst out doing hillwalking anytime from June to August.

This Mountain Ringlet survey is part of a wider study of Montane Invertebrates being funded by Scottish Natural Heritage, The National Trust for Scotland; John Muir Trust & Butterfly Conservation.

Dr Andrew Masterman
Committee Member
Glasgow & SW Scotland Branch of Butterfly Conservation

[diggleken]

Hi Andrew and welcome to WAB.
Hopefully this thread will have started the ball rolling on this site - not for me though, sadly, not able to get up there this year. Good luck.
If its any use, I did however see mountain ringlets about 4 or 5 years ago on the upper slopes of Carn Ban Mor, at the head of Glen Feshie, Cairngorms, whilst looking for Dotterel, but never saw them in the rest of the Cairngorms - I used to go up every year searching for arctic alpine flowers and mountain birds, but always with an eye for anything else up there.
Cheers
Ken