Birds, Leps, Observations & Generalities - the images and ramblings of Mark Skevington. Sometimes.

Friday 26 November 2021

Rough Hill Leafmining

Another belated post - busy, etc etc

Last Sunday, after a few e-mail exchanges and shared ideas, a group of us met up for some late leaf-mining. We headed to Rough Hill in Charnwood, very close to Bradgate Park. I've only been to this site a couple of times before, and only in June - mainly looking for Forester and other day-flying moths, plus a decent selection of Diptera and Symphyta last time. But of course in November, the lush flower-rich meadows are long gone and it is more obvious that the site is reclaimed land that has been cleared/planted up. There are plenty of pockets of woodland with a decent range of broadleaved and coniferous trees - really it is only lacking Alder.

It was nice and bright in the main, but the wind was a bit sharp when not sheltered by the trees. I managed to leave my phone in the car, which I usually use for general landscape shots as it is much better for this than any of my 'real' cameras. Still I had the TG-6 in my bag so here's a couple of not very good shots to set the scene ....

It turned into exactly what we hoped for - a leisurely and sociable but productive amble around the site, collecting leaves along the way and passing on a bit of knowledge to each other in the process. So far the provisional list stands at 31 leafmining species (plus Coleophora laricella cases on Larch, Infurcitinea argentimaculella larval tubes on lichen and a Scarce Umber found at rest). Not bad at all considering that most of the trees were almost bare and many leaves were picked up from the floor.

Here's a selection:

Ectoedemia intimella - tenanted mine on Salix sp.

Phyllonorycter cerasicolella - tenanted mine on Cherry (Prunus sp.)

Phyllonorycter quercifoliella - mine on oak with pupa intact, pupal cremaster checked

Gypsonoma dealbana - early stage larval feeding pattern and frass 'tube' on oak

Coleophora laricella - case on Larch

Scarce Umber

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