Yes, I’ve once again been staring at trees and shrubs, leaf fossicking, turning over leaves to see what lies beneath, though, in this case, I didn’t have to – the aphids were right there in front of me, so many of them clinging to the developing flowers of Ivy that the stems appeared black instead of green.
And, once again, I’m not absolutely certain of my identification but I’m fairly sure that these are Aphis hederae, Ivy aphids. They definitely resemble the images shown on the Influential Points website, though that website does mention that 12 aphid species can be found on Ivy in Britain.
And, once again, the iRecord database is showing a relatively small number of records for this species; mine is just the sixth Welsh record, and all the rest are scattered across southern England, with none showing in Scotland or Northern Ireland. This tends to support my theory that few people bother to check for or record aphid species. (If my record is, at some subsequent date, determined to be wrong, I will update this blog.)
