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