Midge Season Update – May 2016
The 2016 Scottish midge season is beginning to hot up and it looks like we will see the traditional pattern of our first major midge catches in the first week of June. Of our forecast traps, the biggest catches so far have been in our Argyll station (near Inverary), where a wet weekend 20/21st May was followed by temperatures rising to 17oC. As a consequence we saw close to 100,000 midges caught over a single night on 23rd May.
Keen @MidgeForecast followers have also been tweeting back their midge reports, from Cornwall to the Peak District, North Wales and up on to the Isle of Skye. We’ve also had reports of significant tick activity, particularly in the Glen Nevis region.
The next few 7-10 days will be critical in establishing the first generation of biting midges and with temperatures looking warm and settled, we could be in for a bumper biting season.
To keep an eye on local variations in midge populations, our Midge Watch project will begin again very soon and all budding ‘Citizen Midge Scientists’ are very welcome to get involved and can contact the project at midgewatch@smidgeup.com