This was a wonderful surprise! I was checking Poplar leaves, not searching for anything in particular, when I turned over a leaf and found this tiny moth, presumably only just emerged from the pupa within its silken mine as its wings had not fully expanded.

I didn’t know what it was until I got home and checked my photos, and then was fairly sure I must have got my identification wrong as the Welsh biodiversity database was showing just four Welsh records, all closer to England, in the county of Gwent. The name I’d come up with was Phyllonorycter comparella (common name Poplar leaf-miner).

The mine certainly looked right, though it was difficult to be certain of the moth from what I had been able to see of its markings. But when I posted photos on social media, one of the moth experts I know almost immediately popped up with a comment ‘Blimey …’ and ‘I can’t think of any plausible alternatives’, and then another expert commented ‘Very good find’. And now my county moth recorder has confirmed my record. You can read more about this Poplar-leaf-mining moth on the British Leafminers website and see better photos of the adult moth on the UK Moths website.