The Nature of Scotland

Wild calendar
Kenny Taylor gives
some seasonal
tips for savouring
Scottish wildlife
and landscapes
In the changing tones of leaves and the deepening of dusks, in
the movements of birds to roost, in the dew-spangling of spiders’
webs and the roar of deer in the hills, there’s an energy to autumn.
Make the effort to meet it, and autumn’s nature can revitalise with its
patterns, tones, tastes and sounds. From the tiniest fallen leaf to the
largest mountain, autumn is out there. And it’s beautiful.
Y’s moves
While bird migration can be quite noticeable in autumn,
long-range movements of moths tend to go un-noticed by
most people. But these flights can be just as impressive as
the migrations of birds.
The Silver Y moth, a common migrant to Britain from
Europe, is named for the y-shaped squiggle on each wing. It
arrives in large numbers from countries to the south in spring
and summer. Some individuals go south again in autumn.
What is remarkable is that a Silver Y can match, or beat,
the speed of many small migrant birds. Its technique is to
wait until the wind is blowing in roughly the direction in
which it wants to migrate. Then it flies up to an altitude of
over 400 metres.
With a good push from a tail wind and even some
turbo-boost from the jet stream, a Silver Y can travel up to
700 kilometres in 8 hours of flight. That’s like going from
Edinburgh to Calais, across the English Channel, in a single
working day.
Not bad for a creature that could sit on your thumb.
Web tip: www.nature.com/news/2010/100204/full/
news.2010.54.html
4 The Nature of Scotland