Category: Midge Season Update

2018 has seen the slowest start to the Scottish midge season since 2015, when we had very similar cool weather in April and May, which delayed the first emergence of the midges from their overwintering habitat as larvae just below the soil surface.  The same pattern seems to be occurring in 2018 but over the …

With a cool start to the year, it looks like we are unlikely to see an early start to the midge season, as in 2017 when emergence was high in early-mid May, resulting in bumper numbers of midges by the end of the month. Average temperatures during March and April 2018 have been around 3 …

The 2017 midge season is well into the first generation, with the past 4-5 weeks seeing record numbers of midges across much of the western half of Scotland. Warm, showery weather has encouraged both their emergence and survival, giving us a large population of blood-thirsty female midges, whose eggs will hatch to give a second …

The 2016 midge season started off with major emergences across Scotland’s midge territory, equalling those seen in the record midge season of 2014.  Catches of 80,000 midges/night were seen at the end of May in Argyll, followed by similar numbers in the North West of Scotland just a few days later. The first generation of …

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 …

The 2016 Scottish midge season is just around the corner, but with fluctuating weather it’s still a waiting game. We would normally expect to see the first midges appearing in mid May, peaking during the first week of June, but we’ll have to see what the weather does over the next few weeks to see …