Bagging a Midget

I'm not referring to some below average height Monarch. Last Friday evening a local recorder Hazel Graves posted some leaf mines on our VC55 Facebook group that she believed to be Phyllonorycter pastorella. I confirmed that these did indeed look right, that there were no previous VC55 records and that this was a species only added to the British List in 2014. The post did not give any details for the record at that point. Given that it was a likely VC55 first I suggested posting to the British Leafminers group for confirmation, whilst also asking for the details.

By early afternoon on Saturday, I'd not seen a response and so decided to go out and have a nosey around at a likely site. I figured the Soar Valley was as good a place to check as any, but I was short on time so needed somewhere I could park up and check out quickly. Narborough Bog and Everard's Meadows are closer to home but would need a bit of a walk before hitting likely prime habitat, whereas Aylestone Meadows is a little further but I could be searching within a couple of minutes of parking up. So off I headed, and literally five minutes after parking I found mines on a big hybrid crack willow of some sort. I carried on searching and within half an hour or so I'd found it at three spots alongside the canal, all in the same tetrad and all on long-leaved crack willow type trees. Whilst I was out, Hazel posted some details: actually found the previous weekend at - Aylestone Meadows, albeit further north closer to the King Power stadium but within the same tetrad as those I found. Confirmed by Rob Edmunds.

I collected a handful of mines in the hope I'd find one tenanted. I ended up with a couple tenanted with fresh pupae intact, and a couple vacated. Here's an example showing the relatively large mine with a single crease and feeding marks on the upper surface:

When backlit, the pupa is visible in the mine laying pretty much parallel to the crease, with all the frass piled up at the other end.

I was confident that one would emerge fairly soon, and have been checking them every morning, late afternoon and again before going to bed. Last night, I found one had emerged at some point during the evening ....

Phyllonorycter pastorella - needless to say a new moth for me

Not a typical shiny Phyllonorycter with white streaks and strigulae, but quite smart all the same. I mentioned this being added to the British List in 2014 - that was when mines were found in the grounds of Buckingham Palace. Hence the daft (unused) vernacular Royal Midget. Since the weekend, after alerting other leaf mine recorders, it's been found near to Burbage which is much further south and well away from the first site. I suspect this will turn out to be fairly well spread and established within a year or two.

I also found some mines on Ash at last after having had a blind spot for them for a long while, and then found more on Sunday during a bit more square-bashing.

Cone and vacated cocoon within of Caloptilia cuculipennella at Aylestone Meadows

Early-stage leaf mine of Caloptilia cuculipennella at Stapleton

Blotch mines of Gracillaria syringella at Stapleton

The Soul Inside

I've had a couple of busy days at work, too late home to get out and do anything. In the meantime the most skanky-looking immature Lammergier is soaring around the Peak District. I don't do much twitching these days (years more like!), and when I do it's usually something that's been around for a few days. I was sorely tempted to head up to Bempton for the Black-browed Albatross a couple of weeks ago, as that would have been absolutely mega, but it did the decent thing and fecked off before I could have gone. The Desert Warbler would have been a yeartick so not arsed with that, and the weird shearwater down south was of no interest at all to me. The Brown Booby is in another Country so may as well be on Antigua for all I care. But I'm hoping this vulture goes too, as I think otherwise I may be drawn to go and have a 12km?? round hike to gawp at it. I hope it goes of its own accord though, not because some fuckwitted gamekeeper has shot or poisoned it.

I'm much more likely though to head out locally and try and grab some more leafmines to gaze at in clueless wonder. Remember I said about looking at oak, but don't hold your breath - here's why ....

Two gallery mines, egg on underside of leaf, one with frass filling the mine until the latter part, one with the frass in a neat line until the latter part. One around the lobe, one pretty much central in the leaf. If these were on any other tree I reckon there would be enough to diagnose the culprit. But these are on oak. I know that they are both Stigmella spp., but there are at least six potential species and whilst I can narrow it down, ultimately I have no record. The missing ingredient is that the soul inside has vacated the mine; larval head colouration would help to confirm one way or another.

The following are also from Croft Hill on Friday 10th - the day when I picked up quite a few new species one way or another. One of them was this ....

What you can't see in this photo is the tiny spider I ignored and brushed away before looking at the structures that I found on the underside of a Sycamore leaf and wondered WTF they were. It didn't take long though to work out that these are the egg cases of the aforementioned tiny spider Paidiscura pallens, also known as the Sputnik Spider - and you can see why.

Whilst looking around some Aspen saplings, I was very pleased and lucky to find this ....

A superb first instar Puss Moth and the egg it came from. I'm going to rear through to final instar, and I've already managed to transition it to 'sallow' - whatever that is.

Memorabilia ...

.... and other great tracks from Soft Cell is what I have mostly been listening to lately, staying stuck in an early 80s soundscape and loving every bar.

This week, I have mostly been listening to ..

The superb 1981 debut album from Soft Cell.