A couple of days ago I brought home two Ivy leaves I’d plucked off a plant on my way home (I’m trying to improve my sketching skills this year and figured these might be an easy leaf to start with). It was only when I got home and was looking more closely at them that I discovered one leaf had some tiny attachments on the underside.

These are Viburnum cushion scale insects (Lichtensia viburni), which, in southern Europe, are recognised as pests on Olive trees, while, in northern Europe, they are mostly found on Ivy. From looking at photos on the Bladmineerders website, the scale insects I found are male. Beneath their outer shield, they will eventually moult into two-winged adults and fly off to find females to mate with.

The female scales are the ones some of you may have noticed on your plants – once fertilised in the springtime, their bodies swell with eggs and produce a white woolly covering, which is actually the egg sac. You can read more and see further images on the Bladmineerders website.