24 Saturday Dec 2022
Posted in insects
Looking at the weather forecast for the next week, I think I can confidently say I’ve seen my final butterfly for 2022. It was on 6 December, a surprisingly warm day in the winter sunshine, when was this slightly battered-looking Red admiral emerged from its over-winter hiding place. I am SO looking forward to the return of the butterflies in 2023, and I’m planning to see a few more of the British species I’ve not yet seen, which will be exciting.
19 Monday Dec 2022
Tags
Common polypody, leaf-miner on fern, leaf-mining moth larvae, leaf-mining moths, Polypodium vulgare agg, Psychoides filicivora
At the start of this year I found my first moth larvae living in self-constructed coverings of spores on the underside of fern leaves. At that occasion, the ferns were Hart’s-tongues (Asplenium scolopendrium) and the moth larvae were Psychoides filicivora. However, there is another moth species that lives like this on fern fronds so, when I found this larva last week on one of the Polypody fern species (Polypodium vulgare sensu lato), I was hoping I’d found the second species, Psychoides verhuella. Unfortunately, I had not but I was still pleased to have found P. filicivora on a different fern species. My search for the other moth species continues.
17 Saturday Dec 2022
Posted in insects
I almost forgot about this photo, taken a couple of weeks ago on a local walk. I’ve seen aphids of various sizes all together on one branch before but I’ve never knowingly seen an aphid that’s just had a baby. In fact, I didn’t know aphids gave birth to live young, rather than lay eggs, and I’ve only just found out that there’s no sex involved in the reproduction process. They may be the bane of every serious gardener but what fascinating creatures aphids are!
14 Wednesday Dec 2022
Posted in insects
Tags
British springtails, harlequin ladybird, hoverfly larvae, ladybirds, springtail, Syrphus sp larvae, Syrphus species
Last week, before our current cold snap (though we’ve had no snow, it was -8C in the bitter easterly wind today), I was amazed at how many insects I found on and around a black metal fence that borders a local park.
I was initially checking for hoverfly larvae, as I was alerted a couple of years back to the fact that they can often be found on fences and other objects under trees like Sycamore – I think they fall when the leaves fall, then stay on the fence rails gobbling up any aphids that also fall. The four hoverfly larvae I found (shown below the lovely blue-bodied fly) are all from the Syrphus genus (but it’s not possible to identify them to species level), but I was surprised to also find an abundance of Springtails and more than 20 ladybirds, almost all Harlequin. I don’t know why the fence attracted them all – it felt cold to the touch but perhaps the black paint meant the surface was warm when the sun did actually shine.
12 Monday Dec 2022
Tags
fly leafmines, Ground-ivy, leaf mines, leaf-mining fly larvae, leafmines on Ground-ivy, Phytomyza glechomae
This time last month I found my first leafmines on Ground-ivy (Glechoma hederacea) (and blogged about them on 14 November, Leafmines: Coleophora albitarsella). Now, I’ve found another new-to-me leafmine on this same plant species only this one was made not by the larva of a moth but rather but the larva of a fly called Phytomyza glechomae. The mines are quite distinctive, starting with a winding gallery and finishing with a wider blotch, with plenty of frass scattered throughout. As always, you can read more and see plenty of images on the excellent British Leafminers website.
07 Wednesday Dec 2022
Posted in insects
This tiny moth was a lovely surprise from last week’s wildflower searching. I only managed a couple of quick shots before it flew into the vegetation but they were good enough for my friendly local moth expert to identify this as a Beautiful plume (Amblyptilia acanthadactyla), which George also told me is ‘One of the few plumes that overwinters as an adult’. Beautiful, indeed!
05 Monday Dec 2022
Tags
British leafminers, Bucculatrix ulmella, cocoon on Oak leaf, leaf-mining moth, leafmining moth larvae, moth cocoon
This new-to-me species was the result of a recent session turning over Oak leaves to see what might be lurking beneath. I didn’t actually find the leafmines for this creature but rather, on adjacent trees, two empty cocoons – the tiny moths (pictured on the UK Moths website) that were metamorphosing inside had already hatched and flown (you can see part of the pupal case poking out of one cocoon). The ribbing on the cocoon points to this being one of Bucculatrix genus of moths and the fact that these were on Oak gives a positive identification of Bucculatrix ulmella (don’t be fooled by the specific name ulmella, which would appear to indicate the larvae feed on Elm – the species has apparently been misnamed).
23 Wednesday Nov 2022
This is my favourite time of year for leaf turning, not only because it’s the best time of year to search for leafmines but also because you never know what you might find lurking beneath. In this instance, a rosy red Parent bug (Elasmucha grisea), which overwinters as an adult bug, was hiding away beneath the leaves in a well-vegetated spot.
19 Saturday Nov 2022
Posted in insects
Back in September 2021, after a little leaf-turning produced examples of eggs and larva, I blogged about The lacewing lifecycle. But that was one of the green lacewing species, so I didn’t initially connect the tiny larvae shown in the photos below with lacewings – in fact, I thought they were leafhopper larvae but, despite a good search through the images on the British Bugs website and other online image resources, I wasn’t able to distinguish which species. So, as I often do, I posted images on Twitter and asked for help (I’m going to miss that place if/when it finally dies!).
Turns out, the little critters are the larvae of the Dustywing or Waxy lacewing, one of the Coniopterygidae species. Trouble is, around 460 species have so far been identified and the only way to really nail them down is to examine their genitals under a microscope. I am happy to remain ignorant and let these little creatures live their lives, though I am pleased I can now, at least, recognise them as lacewing.
16 Wednesday Nov 2022
Though I know many Lepidoptera over-winter as caterpillars, and this has been a particularly mild November as well, it was still a surprise to see these two caterpillars on one of my recent walks. From previous sightings, I knew that the black, red and white hairy beastie was the larva of a Knot grass moth (Acronicta rumicis) but I didn’t recognise the other one. One of my Twitter pals was able to tell me it’s one of the Noctuid species of moths but wasn’t able to be more specific, but I’ve just ordered a book I’ve long desired, The Field Guide to Caterpillars of Great Britain and Ireland, so will hopefully be able to update this post soon.
earthstar 
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