Monthly Archives: June 2022

Cheeky little flitters

10 Friday Jun 2022

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The skippers are here! I spotted my first Large skipper of the year on Wednesday 1 June but that butterfly flitted quickly past a couple of times before disappearing, seemingly by magic, and it wasn’t until last Friday, a hot sunny day, that more skippers appeared. On that day’s walk I saw six in total, in four different locations, and the cheeky little flitters even posed obligingly for photographs.

220610 large skipper (1)

Of course, they weren’t actually posing for me. Male Large skippers like to find themselves a perch from which to survey their domain and keep a look out for any passing females. Even after flitting up to scare other males off their patch or to follow females in the hopes of mating, they will still return to their chosen perch. So, if you’re having trouble getting a good look at these glorious golden butterflies or taking their photographs, it can be a good idea to just stand still and watch a while until you work out their perching spot.

220610 large skipper (2)

Rose leaf galls

09 Thursday Jun 2022

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I was alerted to the possibility of finding these galls by a post I saw on Twitter – social media certainly is good for spreading the word about what to look for when and where.

220609 Blennocampa phyllocolpa

These galls, these downward rollings of the leaf edges on rose species, are due to the larvae of the sawfly Blennocampa phyllocolpa. Presumably, they cause the leaves to roll in order to create shelters for themselves, as the leaves seem otherwise unharmed, though, when I carefully unrolled perhaps 10 leaves, I only found a larva in one of them. The adult sawfly is a tiny black creature, photos of which you can see on The Sawflies (Symphata) of Britain and Ireland website. If you have roses in your garden, you may already be aware of this sawfly’s activities on your plants.

A hatching

07 Tuesday Jun 2022

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Remember A Holly blue and her egg, my post on 24 May? Well, the egg has now hatched and I’ve had my first glimpses of the larva, so incredibly tiny that, with my poor eyesight, I had to take some macro photographs and look at those to be sure of what I was seeing – spot the hairy larva in the photo on the right below.

220607 holly blue egg and larva

These images were taken one day apart, so the larva can have been no more than 24 hours old at this stage. In his essential publication Life Cycles of British & Irish Butterflies, author Peter Eeles writes: ‘The larva starts to feed by burying its head deep into the bud on which the egg was laid’. This is the first of four stages the larva goes through before it pupates, so I’ll be checking back regularly to try to monitor its progress.

Leafmines: Pistol case-bearer

06 Monday Jun 2022

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The UK Moth website explains the name of this rather bland-looking moth: ‘The “Pistol Case-bearers” are so named from the resemblance of their larval cases to an old flintlock pistol in shape.’ And I think you can see that likeness in my photos.

220606 Coleophora anatipennella (2)

I’d not seen anything like these before so turned to some Twitter experts for help with their identification. Fortunately, Rob Edmunds, of British Leafminers website fame, was able to confirm that these are indeed the larval cases of the Pistol case-bearer moth (Coleophora anatipennella). Their feeding makes tiny holes in the leaves, which you can see in the photos above and below, and these particular ‘pistols’ contain larvae that have over-wintered in their cases, which Rob thinks are now ‘in position pupating on the upper leaf surface’. Nature never ceases to amaze me!

220606 Coleophora anatipennella (1)

An orchid surprise

05 Sunday Jun 2022

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The site where I usually see Southern marsh-orchids (Dactylorhiza praetermissa), Cardiff’s Grangemoor Park, has been closed for several months (it’s a former landfill site and the aged infrastructure that manages escaping methane gas and the leaching of contaminated water into the adjacent river is being upgraded). So, it was a thrilling surprise to discover three of these beauties in the damp lower edge of a local meadow where they’ve not been recorded before.

220605 southern marsh-orchid

From larva to adult moth

04 Saturday Jun 2022

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Back in June 2021, I blogged about the webs I was finding on Spindle trees in a local woodland, the silken creations of the larvae of the Spindle ermine moth (Yponomeuta cagnagella), and I’ve been seeing a multitude of these webs and larvae again in recent weeks. They don’t do a lot of damage to the larger Spindle trees but, as you can see below right, the larvae’s voracious appetites can strip the smaller saplings.

220604 spindle ermine 1 larvae

I’d heard that when the larvae are fully grown, they drop to the ground to pupate, often dangling in writhing groups from a silken thread. This was the first time I’d seen the larvae doing just that.

220604 spindle ermine 2 larvae

During my most recent visit to this woodland where Spindle trees – and the Spindle ermine larvae that munch on them – are most plentiful, I finally saw some of the adult moths**, and what beautiful little creatures they are. There were four, all sitting on thistles within a few feet of each other, so I assume they had recently emerged from pupation. And so the life cycle begins again.

220604 spindle ermine 3 adults

** A correction: Well, wouldn’t you know it? My Spindle ermine moths turned out to be Thistle ermine (Myelois circumvoluta). Serves me right for assuming they must be Spindle ermine just because of all the larvae in the area.

Glow-worm larva

02 Thursday Jun 2022

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This was a surprise.

220602 glow-worm larva (1)

I’d just come to the end of a long meandering wander around woodland rides and meadows, finding little in the way of critters to photograph or ponder over, and was heading homewards, stomping up a private road, when I looked down and spotted this bizarre-looking mini-beastie tootling along. It’s a Glow-worm larva and the Wildlife Trusts website has this to say about them: ‘Glow-worms live for up to three years as predatory larvae, living under rocks and hidden deep in grassy tussocks where they mainly feed on snails.’

220602 glow-worm larva (2)