Category Archives: nature

Leafmines: Agromyza anthracina

30 Monday May 2022

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We’ve had a break from leafmines for a while but now the leaves are once again green and lush, it’s time to check them for signs of the mines of munching moth and fly and beetle larvae.

220530 Agromyza anthracina (2)

Today’s example is a new one for me: Agromyza anthracina, a fly whose larvae thrive on Nettles. It’s common in England and, though there aren’t many Welsh records, it seems that’s because it’s under-recorded rather than rare. Since a Twitter friend found mines on Nettles in a local park last week, I’ve found mines in several locations on my walks.

220530 Agromyza anthracina (1)

I’ve lightened these images a lot to try to show more clearly the details of the mines: some are quite intestinal in design and the frass in the galleries is like a child’s scribble pattern.

Three blues

11 Wednesday May 2022

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After spotting my first damselflies of the year (Large reds) on 21 April, there was quite a lull (probably dull-weather-induced) until any further species appeared. But, on a warmer, sunnier day last week (3 May), all three of the more common blue species appeared together. They are:

220511 azure damselfly

Azure damselfly (Coenagrion puella)

220511 common blue damselfly

Common blue damselfly (Enallagma cyathigerum)

220511 blue-tailed damselfly

Blue-tailed damselfly (Ischnura elegans)

Modestly cheerful

13 Sunday Mar 2022

Posted by in nature, spring, wildflowers

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‘Modestly cheerful’ – this is how Richard Mabey describes Common whitlowgrass (Erophila verna) in Flora Britannica. He continues: ‘The small white flowers are amongst the first to appear in March, and are followed by seed-pods a little like miniaturised versions of honesty’s.’

220313 common whitlowgrass (1)

He also explains that the name is due to the plant’s use by medieval herbalists to treat whitlows, not a medical condition I was familiar with but which the Oxford Dictionary defines as ‘an abscess in the soft tissue near a fingernail or toenail’. I don’t recommend a Google image search as the condition looks quite gruesome, but these wildflowers, often present in large massed displays, are a delight.

220313 common whitlowgrass (2)

Nut stashers

10 Thursday Feb 2022

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Today’s lovely long meander took me to Cosmeston Lakes Country Park, where I watched a large flock of Fieldfares and Redwings worming in the west paddock, enjoyed the antics of the almost-tame Crows that are feed daily by a regular visitor and now expect all humans to feed them, and chuckled at the small birds squabbling over which would get the sunflowers amongst the seed I dished out. The Nuthatches won that game most of the time, repeatedly nabbing two and three at a time to take away and stash for later consumption.

220210 nuthatch

Dothidella ulmi

29 Friday Oct 2021

Posted by in fungi, leaves, nature, trees

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Fungi come in an amazing variety of forms and colours. Here’s one I found for the first time a week or so ago.

211029 Dothidella ulmi (1)

You’re probably familiar with Sycamore tarspot (Rhytisma acerinum), which makes black spots on the leaves of Sycamore trees. Well, this is superficially similar, though not as widely recorded in Britain: it’s Dothidella ulmi, a fungus that develops under the epidermis of leaves on Elm trees, in this case Wych elm, then erupts in a mass of grey blisters.

211029 Dothidella ulmi (2)

Scaeva pyrastri

04 Saturday Sep 2021

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It’s quite the transformation, from this green larva that looks a bit like a cross between a slug and a caterpillar …

210904 scaeva pyrastri (1)

to this black-and-white flying creature.

210904 scaeva pyrastri (2)

This is the hoverfly Scaeva pyrastri and, amazingly, it’s a migrant from mainland Europe. A bit like the Red admiral butterfly, Scaeva pyrastri has good years and bad years, sometimes visiting lowland Britain in large numbers, sometimes hardly at all. And, when it comes here, it does often breed locally (and here, I must add a caveat – the larva in my first image may actually be the other Scaeva species, S. selentica, though that species hasn’t actually been recorded in my area).

210904 scaeva pyrastri (3)

Autumn Redstarts

24 Tuesday Aug 2021

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Thanks to a chat with local expert birder, Graham, I saw splashes of autumn, the flashing orange-red of a young male Redstart, at Cosmeston yesterday.

And he – the bird that is, not Graham – certainly wasn’t shy about displaying the glorious colours under his tail and wing, as he flitted from bush to ground to small tree to wire fence in his constant search for food.

There was another bird calling constantly very close by, probably a second Redstart, but I didn’t manage to get on to it before getting a message that there were Whinchats on the other side of the park. I love this time of year – you never know what’s going to turn up next.

Buff-tip larvae

18 Wednesday Aug 2021

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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.

210818 buff tip moth larvae (1)

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.

210818 buff tip moth larvae (2)

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.

210818 buff tip moth larvae (3)

Bush-crickets

16 Monday Aug 2021

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August is the time of the crickets, when many species mature from nymph to adults and the males begin their night-time wing-against-wing-rubbing (called stridulation) to advertise their presence.

210816 dark bush-cricket

I found this Dark bush-cricket sunning itself on a bramble bush. It started to move under a leaf as I approached with my macro-lensed camera but then kindly consented to pose for some images. It’s such a handsome beast, with its dappled brown body armour.

210816 speckled bush-cricket

This Speckled bush-cricket also wasn’t sure about me getting so close but somehow sensed I wasn’t a threat. She’s a stunning female – the dagger-like appendage on her rear is her ovipositor, used to lay eggs in tree bark and plant stems.