This is my beautiful female Carrion crow friend, the mate of the handsome male I’ve featured here before (The look, the glare, 26 October 2022). For some reason, they haven’t raised a family this year – perhaps they tried but were disturbed, or their chicks perished in our dreadful early Spring weather. Or, maybe, after successfully raising three youngsters last year (My crow family, 15 July 2023), they decided to give themselves a break this year (though I think that’s probably me anthropomorphising their decision-making process). Both Mr and Mrs Crow are moulting at the moment so looking a little bedraggled but they still look lovely to me.
Since I discovered a Purple hairstreak, a couple of years ago, at Cosmeston Lakes Country Park, where they’d never been recorded before, I’ve been convinced that these gorgeous little butterflies are more common than most people realise. It’s just that, because they’re very small and spend most of their time high up in the tops of Oak trees, nobody notices them. So, being an habitual leaf-starer anyway, I now spend 10-15 minutes at this time of year staring at Oak trees, just in case. Last week, my leaf-staring paid off once again, when I was exploring Cardiff’s Heath Park. There are lots of large old Oaks in the park so it seemed a likely location, despite there being no recorded sightings. And this was my reward – even better than I expected, as it fluttered down from the top of the tree to a lower branch and posed nicely while I got some photos.
Another Monday, another leafmine. I noticed this one while checking out Alder leaves to see what small creatures had been munching holes in their leaves (more on those later this week). This blotch mine was made by the larva of sawfly Heterarthrus vagans (you can see what the adult sawfly looks like on the Sawflies website here).
I thought initially this might have been the larva of sawfly Fenusa dohrnii – I was right about it being a sawfly but had the species wrong. Fortunately, I had held the leaf up to the light to get a slightly clearer photo of the larva within as, from looking at that, British Leafminers expert Rob was able to tell me: ‘It has a black “bow tie” … so is a Heterarthrus and as it is Alder it is Heterarthrus vagans‘. Who knew sawfly larvae wore bow ties? But it seems all the Heterarthrus species larvae have them. Very smart!
I’m sure I must have walked along the coastal path at Sully beach in the summer months in previous years but, somehow, I’ve never noticed the Sea-lavender before. And how could I not have noticed this glorious swathe of lilac growing from cracks in the layers of rocks?
According to my guide books, Common sea-lavender (Limonium vulgare) usually grows in salt-marshes, whereas Rock sea-lavender (Limonium binervosum agg.), of which there are several subspecies, grows on sea cliffs, rocks by the sea, and in the shingle of drier salt-marshes. So, I assume this is one of the Rock sea-lavender species but I can’t be sure. And, for me, it doesn’t really matter – it’s just beautiful to see.
The Essexes were late arriving this summer and, as I almost frantically checked the antennae of every Small skipper I could find (not as many of them as usual either), I had begun to think I wouldn’t see one. (For context, my first sightings in previous years have been as follows: 2019 9 July, 2020 25 June, 2021 11 July, 2022 29 June, 2023 23 June.) Then, finally, on 17 July I spotted not one but two male Essex skippers involved in a little skirmish over territory in a local coastal field. And the next day one popped up most obligingly at Cosmeston Lakes Country Park. And there have been a couple more since then … so, I’m a happy butterflier once more.
Recent leaf-bothering has turned up several clutches of insect eggs, usually laid on the undersides of leaves. Most I can’t identify but these are two I can. I knew this first lot were shieldbug eggs but I wasn’t sure of the species. Luckily, an entomologist who follows me on Twitter was able to tell me that this clutch was laid by a Common green shieldbug (Palomena prasina) and, due to the greyish colour of the eggs, he could also tell that they had been parasitised, probably by a species of parasitic wasp.
As you can see, this second clutch of eggs had fared much better, escaping the wasp’s ovipositor to produce these tiny hatchlings. Despite their reddish colouring, these are also Common green shieldbugs; the nymphs will go through several changes of colour and patterning before they assume their final adult appearance.
In my 2023 countdown to the end of the year, I wrote (in T is for terrapin, 25 December) that I’d had my closest ever sighting of a Yellow-bellied terrapin, also known as Yellow-bellied slider (Trachemys scripta scripta), in early November.
That record was eclipsed on Tuesday by this view of a larger, much bolder beast, also at Roath Park Lake. When it turned its head to look at me, I found that cold stare from those reptilian eyes quite unnerving.
From all the leafmine blogs I post, you might well get the impression that I only ever see moths in their larval form, and often those are hidden within leaves. I don’t operate a moth trap – my living accommodation has no outside space for such things, and, though I’m sure there is some value in knowing what moths are around at any given time, I’m not convinced that artificially luring all the moths in your garden to spend the night confined inside a trap is actually a good thing. Still, I do occasionally spot day-flying moths or momentarily disturb roosting night-flying moths during my walks. So, here are a few recent finds (for each species I’ve added links to the UK Moths website in case you want to learn more about them).
Eucosma cana, also known as Hoary tortrix or Hoary bell, found on thistle in a local meadow.
On the left, Evergestis forficalis, common name Garden pebble, spotted in its distinctive resting posture in vegetation by a local path.
On the right, Stathmopoda pedella, another moth with a unique method of sitting, this one found on an Alder leaf, which presumably is why its common names are Alder signal or Alder signaller.
Angerona prunaria or Orange moth. Not a common moth locally so I was fortunate that it fluttered up from vegetation during my recent visit to Slade Wood.
The large numbers of screeching gulls swirling in the sky above alerted me to a hot day phenomenon – we were experiencing a ‘flying ant day’, and this wasn’t just happening where I lived – the same scene was being played out across the UK, though flying ant days can happen any day from June to September, depending on local weather conditions.
In our case, the 25º Celsius temperatures had triggered the emergence of thousands and thousands of Black garden ants (Lasius niger), both with wings and without, which were now streaming from cracks in the pavements and holes in adjacent grassy areas.
These ants are drones (small winged males) and princesses (much larger, winged virgin queens), emerging to mate and form new colonies. (You can read all about their fascinating life cycle on the Natural History Museum website.)
Most fly almost immediately up into the air, so as to disperse as far as possible from their original location, thus preventing inbreeding. One landed on the back of my neck, which is why I happened to get a shot of it between my fingers. It was released unharmed but not all the ants get to enjoy their nuptials – some get caught in spiders’ webs, many get squashed by passing pedestrians and cars, but by far the greatest numbers of casualties are caused by feasting birds, particularly gulls and, locally, the hungry Swifts that harvest the ants to feed their growing young.
As often happens, my search for these leafmines was inspired by a post on Twitter/X. In this instance, George, a locally based senior ecologist with Butterfly Conservation, posted that he had found, for the first time in Glamorgan, the larval cases of the tiny moth Coleophora siccifolia. The find site was on a part of the south Wales coastal path within bus-and-walking distance from home so, on the next fine day, off I set.
Searching the leaves of Hawthorn, I found lots of evidence where Coleophora larvae had been feeding. As they live in cases, there’s usually a tiny hole where the larva has parked its case and poked its head and part of its body inside the layers of the leaf to feed, thus creating a distinctive blotch (as you can see in the photograph above).
As the British leafminers website relates, the larvae also mine the leaves of Apple, Rowan and Birch, and the cases they create from bits of leaves are quite distinctive. George had found several cases but I only managed to find one, and that one was empty. Still, now that we know Coleophora siccifolia can be found locally, I’ll keep on looking for more.
earthstar 
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