Check your evergreens

Whilst the winter wind and rain have swept most leaves from the trees and with it any chance of finding leaf miners, it is still worth checking any Evergreen Oak (Quercus ilex) you happen to be passing as there are mines, both vacated and tenanted, still to be found...

Ectoedemia heringella 

This species is known to be expanding its range, so definitely one worth keeping an eye out for, mines can be plentiful, as illustrated below

Stigmella suberivora


Dave

Early stages: Phyllonorycter platani

This is the most numerous species I have recorded this year, all as leaf mines and all in urban situations up and down the country, including Leeds, Norwich and all around Canterbury.



As the mines can be quite numerous on each leaf and tend to be quite large too, they can still be located in fallen leaves or are also still visible on leaves that are still clinging on to the tree.

Alder Phyll fills out the year list

Although late in the year, still managed to add another to the year list last week in the shape of Phyllonorycter strigulatella leaf mines on Grey Alder.



Whilst many leaves had already fallen, those that remained held plenty of mines from this species as well as those of P. rajella, P. kleemannella and P. stettinensis.

 Phyllonorycter strigulatella and P. kleemannella leaf mines Phyllonorycter rajella leaf mine (underside) Phyllonorycter stettinensis leaf mine

Pistols at dawn

The larval cases of Coleophora anatipennella, aka the Pistol Case-bearer, or at least the feeding signs it leaves behind, can be relatively easy to find at the moment, for as long as the leaves last anyway.  The examples below were found on Blackthorn.

Coleophora anatipennella feeding signs on Prunus




If you do manage to find the feeding signs, and the case is not present on the leaf, it is worth a close inspection of the nearby leaves and particularly in the leaf axils, as the case can often be found here.

Coleophora anatipennella larval case on Prunus




Dave

Stigs to the power of 5

Still plenty of leaf mines to be found - here's a quartet of Stigmella species from recent days...

Stigmella samiatella


Stigmella perpygmaeella



Stigmella floslactella


Stigmella lemniscella


Stigmella hemargyrella


Dave

Early stages: Strophedra weirana

Another often overlooked and under recorded species can be found in its larval stage on Beech right now.  The feeding signs are quite obvious, so one worth keeping an eye out for.

Larval feeding signs


Larva in opened spinning

Early stage excesses

To say that the last few weeks have been productive in terms of early stage finds - mainly leaf miners but also cases and galls - would be an understatement.

Whilst we all seem to have suffered a dearth of adults to the traps this year, with tales of crashes in numbers of usually abundant species becoming clear as we all start to analyse the 2012 figures in detail, here in East Kent I am falling over early stages at every turn.

By way of illustration, here are some figures from the last 15 days i.e. October so far:

213 out of 320 total records (66%) are for early stages
4907 out of 5160 total individuals(95%) are for early stages
75 species recorded as early stages

The most abundant early stages are:
Phyllonorycter coryli - 1126 mines
P. platani- 1505 mines
P. corylifoliella - 355 mines

Other finds include Phyllocnistis xenia, Stigmella aceris, Bucculatrix thoracella, Phyllonorycter platanoidella, Coleophora laricella, Ectoedemia heringella, Parornix fagivora, Strophedra weirana

Phyllocnistis xenia


Stigmella aceris


Parornix devoniella


Stigmella microtheriella

Dave

Miners, miners everywhere

The profusion of leaf miners is still very much in evidence; just this last week have totalled around 2000 individuals of a wide range of species from many food plants. Here's a few of the latest finds:

 Stigmella tityrella
 

Parornix fagivora


Bucculatrix thoracella
 

Stigmella basiguttella 

Early Stages: Hawthorn miners in abundance

All of the hawthorn hedgerows I look at are currently covered in mines of a range of species, here are four species from the last couple of days:

Ectoedemia atricollis
 


Parornix anglicella
 

Phyllonorycter oxyacanthae

Phyllonorycter corylifoliella

Dave

Early stages: Adaina microdactyla

The 'bore holes' and associated galls caused by the larvae of this species are relatively easy to find right now; I found a handful in 2-3 minutes on my way to pick up the kids from school.






Opening up the stems gently will generally reveal the larva inside...




Dave

More mining gems

Whilst we all seem to have suffered with records to the traps, leaf mines are in abundance everywhere right now here in East Kent.

Here's a few more from recent days...

Stigmella continuella


Stigmella betulicola


Stigmella basiguttella


Phyllonorycter esperella

Phyllocnistis unipunctella

Leucoptera malifoliella


Dave