14 Sunday Jan 2024
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Going, going, soon be gone! Given the voracious appetites of birds in the colder weather, those berries than still remain will soon be gone. So, I thought we’d have a change from wildflowers this week and, instead, enjoy some bright berry colours (and hips and haws and other berry-type fruit) before they all disappear into hungry mouths and beaks.
22 Friday Dec 2023
Posted in trees
≈ Comments Off on Q is for Quercus
I read online recently, on the Woodland Trust website, that the English oak (Quercus robur) supports as many as 2300 species, 326 of which depend entirely on the Oak for their survival. The 2300 total includes 108 fungi, 1178 invertebrates and 716 lichens, as well as creatures like bats, butterflies like the Purple hairstreak, birds like Jays and Wood warblers. Where would our ecosystems be without the magnificent Oak?!
17 Sunday Dec 2023
Tags
British leafminers, leaf-mining fly larvae, leaf-mining moth larvae, leafminers, leafmines, leafmines on plants, leafmines on trees
As a result of standing staring for hours at leaves, I’ve found lots and lots of lovely new-to-me leafminers this year. Here’s a summary of those I’ve blogged about:
On 13 February, Leafmines: Phyllonorycter ulicicolella covered the tricky-to-find mines of tiny moth larvae on gorse. In Leafmines: Eriocrania unimaculella, 22 May, the larvae of a different moth were mining Birch leaves, and, on 26 June, Leafmines: Mompha terminella, featured more moth larvae mines, this time on Enchanter’s nightshade. In October the moth miners were munching on Hawthorn leaves (Leafmines: Bucculatrix bechsteinella, 2 October) and on Blackthorn (Leafmines: Lyonetia prunifoliella, 9 October). The only new non-moth miner of the year was a fly whose larvae were found mining the leaves of Alder (Leafmines: Agromyza alnivora, 16 October) and, later in October, we were back to moth miners, with Hawthorn once again the plant of choice (Leafmines: Phyllonorycter corylifoliella, 23 October). In November, a willow moth miner I’d mentioned once before in passing starred in its very own blog (Leafmines: Phyllonorycter viminiella, 20 November) and, a week later, on 27 November, another moth larva was found on the leaves of a rose species (Leafmines: Stigmella anomalella). The final leafminer find of 2023 was yet another moth, this time devouring the leaves of Wild privet (Leafmines: Gracillaria syringella, 4 December).
I’ve already referenced the three case-bearing moth larvae leafminers in an earlier countdown blog (C is for Coleophora) but, just for completeness, I’ll also link to them here: Leafmines: Coleophora lutipennella on 1 May, Leafmines: Coleophora serratella on 15 May, and Leafmines: Coleophora gryphipennella on 13 November.
16 Saturday Dec 2023
Tags
British galls, bug galls, galls, galls on Ash, galls on Hazel, galls on oak trees, galls on Poplar, galls on willow, galls on Yew, Knopper gall, midge galls, mite galls, wasp galls
This is really a review of the galls I’ve found this year but the letter G simply had to be about my first ever confirmed Goshawk sighting, so K is for Knopper is my alternative lead in.
Knopper galls, like the one shown above, did feature in one post this year, Acorns and galls on 1 October, but there were many other galls, most of which were new finds for me. February saw the year off to a good start with galls on Yew trees caused by a tiny midge (Galls: Taxomyia taxi, 9 February) and galls on Hazel caused by an equally tiny mite (Galls: Phytoptus avellanae, 20 February). In June, it was a small bug that was creating eye-catching galls on the leaves of an Ash tree (Galls: Psyllopsis fraxini, 12 June), and, in July, aphids were the gall causers on a Poplar tree (Galls: Pemphigus spyrothecae, 17 July). In that October blog Acorns and galls I mentioned above, as well as the knoppers, another tiny wasp had caused artichoke galls to form on the same Oak tree. And, a couple of weeks later, I found my final new galls for the year, those caused by midges on Willow trees (Galls: Rabdophaga rosaria, 17 October). All in all, 2023 was quite a galling year!
20 Monday Nov 2023
Tags
British leafminers, British moths, leaf-mining moth larvae, leaf-mining moths, leafmines on willow, Phyllonorycter viminiella
This was just the second time I’ve spotted these particular leafmines: they got a mention in On narrow-leaved willows, 26 December 2022, but I thought they deserved their own post. The larvae of the moth Phyllonorycter viminiella munch on the underside of Willows (usually those Salix species with smooth leaves), their feeding causing the edges of leaves to fold over and develop strong creasing in the mine, as you can see in my images below. These attractive little moths are bivoltine, so you can find the larval mines first around July and then again around October.
06 Monday Nov 2023
Tags
British moths, Carcina quarcana, leaf-grazing moth larvae, moth larvae on Blackthorn, moth larvae on Bramble, moth larvae on Buckthorn, moth larval foodplants
I found these first on Blackthorn when looking for leafminers but couldn’t find any examples on the British Leafminers website, so I posted photos on Twitter and asked my ecologically minded followers ‘what’s this?’.
The response was almost instant: ‘Carcina quercana does that on several trees. The silk tube is always against the midrib or a vein and they venture out to graze from there’.
Carcina quercana is a lovely little moth and the little silken tubes are created by its larvae. The UK Moths website says ‘The foodplants are various deciduous trees, including oak (Quercus) [hence the quercana, in its name] and beech (Fagus)’, but, as my examples here show, the larvae don’t seem too fussy about what they eat. My photos here, showing both the upper and lower sides of the leaves, are on Blackthorn, Bramble, and Buckthorn.
And why did I not find this species on the British Leafminers website? Well, strictly speaking, it’s not a miner – the larvae graze on the underside of the leaf when they venture out from their protective silken homes. You might just be able to spot the larva in the photo below.
05 Sunday Nov 2023
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Probably because I am guilty of ignoring most conifers, I hadn’t realised how diverse their seed structures, their cones are. I am also not able to identify most of the conifers I see, neither the natives in local woodland nor the exotics in local parks. I must try to remedy that but, in the meantime, here are some of the many cones, and a few nuts, I’ve been noticing.
25 Wednesday Oct 2023
I know, I know. I said there’d probably be no more aphids during the winter months but they overwinter as adults, and I just happened to be looking at the leaves of a willow while waiting for a train when I spotted these and couldn’t resist a few photos. These are Giant willow aphids (Tuberolachnus salignus), and I happened to catch them in various sizes and forms: the winged aphid is an adult (the scientific term is alate).
The Influential Points website gives some fascinating information about these aphids:
Tuberolachnus salignus is anholocyclic and no males have ever been found, so all reproduction is assumed to be parthenogenetic. The females produce live young which are all genetically identical (clones) … [and]
One part of the giant willow aphid’s life cycle remains shrouded in mystery. Tuberolachnus salignus have only been found on willow trees from July through to early March. Numbers tend to peak in October, but by February few are left on the trees and none has been seen from April to July. [So, where do they go?]
Though I didn’t catch it on camera as my train was pulling in to the station, the aphids got annoyed with my lens being so close to them and started waving their legs at me, apparently something they do to frighten off potential predators.
23 Monday Oct 2023
Tags
Hawthorn, Hawthorn midget, leaf-mining moths, leafminers, leafmines on Hawthorn, moth larvae on Hawthorn, Phyllonorycter corylifoliella
I thought I’d already shared this leafmine but it seems not so say hello to the Hawthorn midget (Phyllonorycter corylifoliella), a very attractive chestnut –and-white moth, which can be viewed on the UK Moths website and whose larvae mine the leaves of various Rosaceous trees and shrubs. As you can probably see, the mines I’ve found have been on Hawthorn (Crataegus species) but they also mine Apple (Malus sp.) and Cherry (Prunus sp.)
The mines, which are found on the upperside of the leaves, look almost silvery and contains strings of brown frass, can be found in July, and again in September –October. The adult moths are active in May and August, though I’ve not seen one yet.
22 Sunday Oct 2023
I hate when this happens: I had a free Microsoft video editor that was easy to use but, for reasons known only to themselves, Microsoft have deleted it and introduced new software which is totally incomprehensible to me. So, I made a video of my berry (and other fruit) images but with no title card and no captions, and no time to spend trying to figure out how easily to add them.
So, from the local fields and hedgerows, here are: Black bryony; Blackthorn; Bramble; Buckthorn; two types of Cotoneaster which, I think, are C. horizontalis and C. luteus; Dewberry; Field rose; Guelder-rose; Hawthorn; Ivy (not yet ripe); Japanese rose; Privet; Snowberry; Spindle (not really a berry/fruit but rather a case for the seeds within, but I love their colour); Stinking iris; Whitebeam; and Yew.