Early July is a great time for botanising and wildlife spotting and we have been taking advantage of some spare time this week to visit some of our favourite sites. On Tuesday we ventured out to Ardnamurchan Point, the most westerly point on mainland Britain, and spotted the nationally scarce transparent burnet moth and caterpillars of the rare belted beauty moth. A good day doing mothing...

On Wednesday we headed off to the white sands passed Smirisary. This is a popular walk and, although often a little boggy, is one of our favourites. We usually time the walk to arrive at the fabulous beach just before low tide and especially enjoy the walk in July and August when the machair grassland behind the beach is alive with wildlife. Yesterday was good dragonfly weather and we spotted both male and female keeled skimmer dragonflies on the walk. The males are unmistakable, being a sublime pale blue colour, whilst the females are yellowish brown. Both sexes have yellow pterostigma (patches on the wing) which is useful in identification. This species has a disjunct distribution along the West Coast on mainland Britain.

The sightings of the keeled skimmer reminded us that we had seen this dragonfly a few years ago in the hills behind Mingarry Lodges, so this morning we headed off on another of our favourite local walks to the old settlement of High Mingarry. The old township of Mengary dates back well before 1745 when it would have consisted of arable land divided up between a number of tenants on a run-rig system. The township has been left deserted since the clearances on the 19th Century and is now a barely detectable ruin. The Moidart History Society conducted a comprehensive survey of The High Mingarry site in 2008 and the documents make for fascinating reading.

Today, however, we were in the quest for the keeled skimmer dragonfly, on the wing locally at Smirisary and no doubt here too. The track to the old settlement passes through forest plantation and old woodland crossing two old bridges before opening out onto the moorland above Mingarry. The grassy path just beyond the plantation was resplendent with chimney sweeper moths this morning. These day flying moths are totally black apart from their white wing tips and are on the wing in July and early August. A remarkable sight on a sunny day.

We had already spotted speckled wood butterflies in the woods and were delighted to see a profusion of common blue butterflies as well as the black chimney sweepers. Dark green fritillary butterflies have recently emerged and were flying strongly and looking good when settling. Small pearl bordered fritillaries were still on the wing and were slightly more amenable for photography.

We also spotted golden ringed dragonfly, large red and common blue damselfly as well as a profusion of other moths. The walk to High Mingarry is well worth it at any season, but today was a particular delight...