Leafmines: Elachista cinereopunctella

14 Monday Apr 2025

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British leafmines, Elachista cinereopunctella, Glaucous sedge-miner, leafmines, leafmines on Glaucous sedge, leafmining moth larvae, leafmining moths

These two leafmines, in the leaves of Glaucous sedge (Carex flacca), may look quite boring and nondescript but scroll down to see what lies within.

This is the stunning little larva of Elachista cinereopunctella, a moth that can be found throughout Britain but only in areas where its larval plants can be found (mainly Glaucous sedge, but some other sedges are also used). And the moth’s not actually that common in Wales, with just 13 records showing in the national biodiversity database. This may be because the adult moth is also rather nondescript (see a photo on the UK Moths website here) and few people look for and record the leaf-mining larval stage. I was lucky to be directed to the presence of these mines by my friendly local moth expert, George, though it still took some poking about the sedges in a local area of woodland to find them.

Luscious leek for lunch

13 Sunday Apr 2025

Posted by sconzani in flowers, insects, spring, wildflowers

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Allium triquetrum, Dark-edged bee-fly, Hairy-footed flower bee, insects on Three-cornered leek, solitary bee, Three-cornered garlic, Three-cornered leek

Today’s short local meander was rather smelly, firstly with swathes of Wild garlic (which will feature in an upcoming post) and also this lush area of Three-cornered leek (or Three-cornered garlic, Allium triquetrum), which was attracting lots of insects.

First up, a tiny solitary bee.

Then, several Dark-edged bee-flies came hovering in to view, long spiky legs dangling below and long tongues poking in to the flowers to feed.

And then this brute showed up, the first Hairy-footed flower bee I’ve managed to photograph this year, just.

Greenland Wheatear

12 Saturday Apr 2025

Posted by sconzani in birds, spring

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birding, birdwatching, British birds, Cardiff Bay birding, Greenland Wheatear, Oenanthe oenanthe leucorhoa, spring migration, Wheatear

I struggle to distinguish between the ‘usual’ Wheatears we see passing through my area and the Greenland Wheatear, one of four subspecies that has the scientific name Oenanthe oenanthe leucorhoa and is usually seen only in the spring as it heads from its overwintering locations in African countries like Kenya to its breeding grounds in Greenland, Iceland and north-eastern Canada. So, when one of our more expert local birders announced the arrival of this Greenland Wheatear on Cardiff Bay Barrage, I went down for a look.

It was certainly a very handsome bird, and I’ve since tried to familiarise myself with some its key features. Given the requirement for its long-haul flight, it’s probably no surprise that Greenland Wheatears are longer winged than the subspecies that fly from Europe to Britain to breed. The Greenland’s relatively large size, longer legs and upright stance are also diagnostic.

They are often described as rotund and pot-bellied, which this bird didn’t really seem to be, but then it had just flown all the way from central Africa so probably needed to feed up to replenish its fat supplies. Fortunately, it wasn’t too bothered by the numerous people and dogs walking in the area, and did seem to be finding plenty of insects to snack on. I’m not sure I could yet confidently identify a Greenland Wheatear without expert help, but this was certainly a stunning bird to see and watch and photograph.

What an effort!

11 Friday Apr 2025

Posted by sconzani in insects, spring

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British butterflies, butterfly, butterfly eggs, butterfly eggs on nettle, Peacock, Peacock butterfly, Peacock butterfly eggs, Peacock butterfly laying eggs, Stinging nettle

As I write this, my fingers are still stinging. And none of my photos are sharp, partly because ‘Ouch!’ but also because I didn’t want to disturb the clutch so was trying to move the leaf as little as possible. But, when I watched their beautiful mother laying the first of these yesterday, I knew I had to go back today to see how many she’d produced.

And here she is, the gorgeous female Peacock butterfly, clinging on to a Stinging nettle leaf. You might just be able to see how her abdomen is curved up towards the underside of the leaf where she is depositing her eggs. My guide book tells me that a female Peacock ‘lays her eggs in batches of up to 400 eggs, a process that can take over two hours’. What an effort! I will, of course, be looking out for when the tiny caterpillars emerge, in approximately two weeks’ time.

Mystery: on a pine tree

10 Thursday Apr 2025

Posted by sconzani in insects, trees

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mystery egg sac, mystery insect, mystery object on pine tree, mystery pupa, mystery pupal case, pine

As the spring and summer progress, this first ‘mystery’ post may well develop in to a mystery series, depending on how many intriguing things I manage to find and how many I don’t manage to identify. These first mystery items were found recently when I was looking more closely than usual at Pine trees to see if I could spot any more Pine ladybirds. I did find one more of those lovely creatures but I also found these ‘things’, dotted sparsely around, attached to the Pine needles.

No amount of googling has produced any similar images or information and, when I asked for help on social media, I was inundated with helpful people saying they were Pine scale, which, after checking the lifecycle of those scales, I’m fairly sure they’re not. They look to me like some kind of egg sac or pupal case, with a tiny creature growing and developing inside.

In an attempt to solve the mystery, I plucked a couple of Pine needles, with the things attached, off one tree, and I’ve brought them home, stuck them in a jar on my kitchen window sill. Whether or not something will emerge remains to be seen and, rest assured, I will definitely write another blog post if that does happen. In the meantime, if any of you has any bright ideas, please do share them in the comments.

Holly blue and Small white

09 Wednesday Apr 2025

Posted by sconzani in insects

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blue butterflies, British butterflies, butterfly, Holly blue, Small white, white butterflies

Two for the price of one today!
It’s always a joy to see the blue butterflies emerge; it’s like a tiny piece of the sky has fallen to earth and is flitting amongst the flowers and shrubs and along the trees and hedges. The first to appear locally are the Holly blues. My first, on 2 April, was in an unlikely place; as I walked past, it flitted out from the street-side hedge of a house a few streets away from where I live. There was no Holly or Ivy in sight but perhaps those larval plants were growing in a nearby back garden that I couldn’t see in to.

Next to appear, just a couple of days later, was a Small white that was already looking a bit tatty. It seems its short life was proving to be a challenge, escaping from bird attacks or, perhaps, getting snagged in vegetation. My second Small white was pristine, feeding along a field edge so abundant with Blackthorn blossom that the area had attracted six species of butterfly: as well as the Small white, there were Speckled wood, Comma, another Holly blue, Brimstone, and my first Orange-tip of 2025 (which will feature in a future blog, as soon as one stays still long enough for a photo).

Mining bees

08 Tuesday Apr 2025

Posted by sconzani in insects, spring

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Andrena species, Andrenidae, bees, British bees, mining bees, solitary bees

Mining bees, the Adrenidae, are notoriously difficult to identify I find, and, as my brain is already swimming with factors to consider when identifying spiders (and other life stuff that is happening in the background), I don’t have the mental capacity to tackle bees at the moment. Maybe they can be next year’s project.

In the meantime though, I can still appreciate how exceedingly cute they are, especially when they sit still for a few moments (which isn’t often) and allow me to get some close up photos (also not often).

Spider: Larinioides cornutus

07 Monday Apr 2025

Posted by sconzani in spiders

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British spiders, Larinioides cornutus, spider on Gorse

I was looking for weevils when I spotted these two spiders on the same Gorse bush at the Cardiff Bay Wetlands Reserve recently. (This was a bit freaky: I need both distance and reading glasses but don’t like bifocals so, when I’m out walking, I have to push my distance specs down my nose and get my head close to small things to see with my unspectacled eyes.)

I initially thought these two spiders were Agalematea redii but quickly realised I was wrong about the first one I found. It is, in fact, Larinioides cornutus, a species that prefers living on vegetation in damp places but can also be found on built structures in those areas. It’s common in the south of Britain, becoming less so the further north you travel. The Spider and Harvestman Recording Scheme website has a map and lots of interesting information.

And, though it looks different to my untrained eye, it turns out that the second spider is also Larinioides cornutus. The very helpful British Spiders social media person on Bluesky explained: ‘The second looks like Larinioides cornutus as well. Although the alpha form of Agelenatea redii has quite similar patterning, it has a noticeably smaller and rounder abdomen – one of those things that’s obvious when you meet it!’ I’m hoping I meet it a little more distantly than I did with the two shown here!

Pretty drooping weeping flowers

06 Sunday Apr 2025

Posted by sconzani in flowers, spring, wildflowers

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British wildflowers, Spring colour, spring wildflowers, Wood anemone, woodland flowers

‘The Wood anemone’, a poem by John Clare (1793-1864)

The wood anemone through dead oak leaves
And in the thickest woods now blooms anew,

And where the green briar and the bramble weaves
Thick clumps o’green, anemones thicker grew,

And weeping flowers in thousands pearled in dew
People the woods and brakes, hid hollows there,

White, yellow and purple-hued the wide wood through.
What pretty drooping weeping flowers they are:

The clipt-frilled leaves, the slender stalk they bear
On which the drooping flower hangs weeping dew,

How beautiful through April time and May
The woods look, filled with wild anemone;

And every little spinney now looks gay
With flowers mid brushwood and the huge oak tree.

Slug: Ambigolimax

05 Saturday Apr 2025

Posted by sconzani in molluscs

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Ambigolimax, British molluscs, British slugs, slug

For some reason the national recorder for slugs thought I’d used a photo app to identify this slug, which I’ve never done. Maybe he just assumed everyone uses them these days, and, in this case, he was ‘afraid the photograph app which you have used has led you astray’. The truth is that I’d googled, and searched various online websites, and couldn’t work out what this slug was so had just recorded it as one of the Arion species. I even managed to get that wrong – turns out this is one of the Three-band slugs (though, I have to admit, I can only see two bands) and ‘At present we cannot tell which of the two species it is without dissection so it has to be recorded just as Ambigolimax‘. I’ll know for the future.