07 Tuesday Sep 2021
Butterflies are smart!
The Speckled wood may be a woodland butterfly, able to cope without as much sunshine as most butterflies need, but it still needs some heat. And, when the sun’s not shining, the warmest places in this area of local woodland are where the rides were recently cut and the grass clippings are beginning to decompose. I found seven Speckled woods in one very small area, all taking advantage of the heat of the rotting process.
06 Monday Sep 2021
Tags
British leafmines, Broad-leaved everlasting pea, leaf-mining fly larvae, leafmine, leafmine on everlasting pea, leafminer, Liriomyza pisivora
Back on 18 August, I noticed Rob Edmunds’ post on Twitter about his find of Liriomyza pisivora mines on the Everlasting pea in his garden, which led me to check, the next day, the plants growing at Cardiff’s Grangemoor Park. I found plenty of leafmines but my finds were inconclusive – there are several species that form similar mines so I needed to get better photos, if possible transparent images that showed the frass distribution in the mines.
So, when I visited Grangemoor again on 28 August to look for the Wasp spiders that had been reported the previous day, I also took the opportunity to look again at the Everlasting pea plants and took several more photographs. From them, I could see that in some of the mines the frass had been deposited as thin lines alternating from one side of gallery to the other.
Those images were good enough for Barry Warrington, the national recorder of the Agromyzidae family of flies, to confirm that I had indeed found Liriomyza pisivora and, a splendid surprise, that this was the first ever record of these flies in Wales!
The host plant in this instance, Broad-leaved everlasting-pea (Lathyrus latifolius), is a relatively recent arrival at Grangemoor, though it is now sprawling abundantly over bramble bushes and along scrubby hedgerows in several parts of the park. So far, I’ve only found Liriomyza pisivora mines in one relatively small area but, perhaps, in time, they will spread throughout the park.
03 Friday Sep 2021
Posted in insects
Do you have a favourite bug? I think the shieldbug is mine. Always cute, often comical, reasonably easy to identify – what’s not to love?
Gorse shieldbug, 2nd instar
Red-legged shieldbug, final instar
And a selection of Common green shieldbugs
30 Monday Aug 2021
Tags
British leaf mines, British sawflies, leaf mines on Oak, leafminers, Oak leafmines, Profenusa pygmaea, sawfly leafmines
Believe it or not, #LeafmineMonday is a thing on Twitter, and last Monday I read with interest this tweet, with photos, posted by Rob Edmunds (@leafminerman, one of the people behind the excellent British Leafmines website):
a sawfly mine which is fairly easy to find, made by Profenusa pygmaea. Look for brown blotches on Oak leaves but with a wriggling start as shown in the photo … Initial mines are whitish but then fade to brown.
Profenusa pygmaea is a species of sawfly – you can read more about it and see photos of the adult on the Sawflies of Britain and Ireland website. As I’m often to be found checking out Oak leaves and there were no records for this particular sawfly in my local area, of course I had to go looking, and I’ve now found these leafmines in two separate locations. I’m guessing it’s yet another under-recorded species so if you spot it in your area, do please record it.
28 Saturday Aug 2021
Posted in insects
I was heading home from Cosmeston after a lovely wander but not having seen much in the way of wildlife when this superb creature appeared on the pavement in front of me – actually, it was lucky I didn’t stand on it!
There was a family walking along not far behind me and I feared their combination of feet, pushchair and trike wheels might squish the creature so I quickly scooped it up and walked to a small area of waste ground where it might take shelter amongst the tall grasses, wildflowers and low scrub.
If you’ve never seen one, this is the caterpillar of the Elephant hawk-moth. It feeds on a variety of plants, particularly Rosebay willowherb, but also the other willowherbs, bedstraws, even Himalayan balsam, so can be found where those wildflowers grow. This particular caterpillar looked very well grown so may have been seeking a place to pupate (remember that pupal case I found back in April?). Let’s hope it found a cosy spot under the leaf litter in its new location.
25 Wednesday Aug 2021
Posted in insects
I think I can safely predict that there will be more Common darters at Casehill Woods next year after catching this pair procreating in today’s warm sunshine. The male had found himself the perfect perch on this Ash sapling and, as always with dragonflies, the female looks like she’s hanging on for dear life.
23 Monday Aug 2021
Posted in insects
I’m walking along a field path at Cosmeston when I feel a light touch on my arm. Before I even look down, I know what it is as this has happened to me often this summer. It’s a picture-winged fly, probably Herina lugubris, dancing along my bare skin, flashing its wings as it goes. It tickles!
21 Saturday Aug 2021
Posted in insects
20 Friday Aug 2021
Posted in insects
Tags
British moths, Grey dagger, Grey dagger caterpillar, Grey dagger larva, moth caterpillar, moth larva
The Butterfly Conservation website says the dagger moths get their name from the dagger-like markings on their wings but check out the hump on the back of this Grey dagger larva – in the infamous words of Lady Macbeth from the Scottish play, ‘is this a dagger I see before me’?
18 Wednesday Aug 2021
Tags
British moths, Buff-tip moth, Buff-tip moth caterpillars, moth caterpillars, moth larvae, Moth larvae on Oak leaves
I’ve never seen a Buff-tip moth (Phalera bucephala) except in photographs (they look incredibly like twigs – see images on the Butterfly Conservation website here). But yesterday I found their larvae, lots of them, all huddled together on the top side and underside of an Oak leaf.
The adult moth, which flies from May to early August, lays clusters of eggs under the leaves of the trees their caterpillars feed on, which, as well as Oak, include Hazel and the various birches and sallows, amongst others.
The larvae hatch out after 2-3 weeks and start eating. It takes just a month for them to go through their four instars, after which they move down into the ground to pupate. Come the spring, the whole process begins again.
earthstar 
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