Tudeley car park - mainly mines and galls, but some surprises

After a quiet morning sorting out papers and diary for the coming term, it was off to Jessups to buy some camera cleaning kit and then up to Tudeley for my last car-park duty of the year. The car park was full with a group led by the amazing Ian Beavis from Tunbridge Wells Museum, who as usual was able to answer my insect questions off the top of his head - fantastic!

After the group had gone it was a quiet afternoon, but still worthwhile because all the visitors who did turn up were utterly nice, and it was a real pleasure to hand out maps and answer their questions. So time to get a few photos although there wasn't a great deal actually moving.

The first thing to be seen was the now very apparent "window-paning" damage caused by slugworm (sawfly larvae) on a small clump of field maple seedlings. I knew the culprit because I had seen them actually feeding last week! I haven't seen this anywhere else on this plant, and its not listed as a host plant under bioinfo either! It might have been Caliroa cerasi.

also on the field maple leaves was the occasional leaf gall, small round swellings, sometimes stalked, sometimes hairy, always on or very close to a main vein, caused by Aceria macrochelus, which is really quite common generally,

Then as I looked at the silver birch, Betula pendula, seedlings, I could suddenly see a number of (mainly) very tightly curled leaves, individually scattered over the plant stems.

I immediately thought of tortrix caterpillars, and inside each tight and twisted roll there was certainly silk and frass - but no caterpillars! Much later on in the afternoon I noticed another leaf which had only been folded once, and not tightly rolled as yet - and hey presto I found a tortrix, with the expected silk and frass.

Hopefully this caterpillar was indicative of the previous inhabitants of the more tightly rolled leaves as well! From the tight rolling of the damaged leaves, the black head and legs on a green crawler body and slight dark bumps on the dorsal surface, this might perhaps have been Tortrix viridana, perhaps more typically associated with oak, but it does look close. It's too late in the year, and the head is the wrong colour, for Apotomis betuletana, which should be seen in May. Any other offers?

Then there was also a leaf mine on the birch, but again there are a rather large number of possibilities to consider,

and here is another,

and the view of the same mine from beneath the leaf,

and yet another type of mine on birch!

There were quite a few blotch mines on the upper surface of the hazel leaves, Corylus avellana, sometimes several to each leaf. This is perhaps Phyllonoricter coryli, a common silvery leaf blotch of hazel, characterised by the mines extending over the top of the veins. The mines I was looking at were too small to extend over the veins,

although this larger one directly over a vein was seen, perhaps with an exit hole. The smaller ones may have been a different species of course, but I think they are all P. coryli, just mainly small new ones of the second generation (listed as September - October), before they have expanded too much, or curled up at all.

There was a rather similar upper-side blotch on the hawthorn, Crataegus monogyna, leaves, looking even more like a bird dropping, with brown speckles. The veins are over the veins in the lobes.

This therefore ought to be Phyllonorycter corylifoliella!

and then I saw just one of these, a micro-lepidoptaran Coleophora species for sure, but which one? It could perhaps be C. coracipennella or C. spinella, or another species entirely. in any case these cases are remarkable sights!

This gall on nettle is very common, and hopefully reliably identified as Dasineura urticae, caused by a tiny Cecid gall midge.

and here is another infested leaf. These galls are often infected with other Cecids, which are predatory on the primary gall-former,

Just by the entrance there were several Potentilla reptans leaves with blotch mines on the upper surface. I can't find anything like this in the guides.

this is another Potentilla, the silverweed, Potentilla anserina, but this discolouration is likely to be a virus, rather than a gall as such,

This could be another virus, on nettle this time:

and yet another virus,

This is the only shield-bug I saw today, the sloe bug or Dolycoris baccarum. The antennae are white banded (note double bands), the edge of the abdomen is white spotted, and the insect is notably hairy.

And I only saw ONE hover-fly on the flowers for sure, they all seem to have vanished since a week ago. The only places I can still find them are when the males go "lekking" in sunspots in the woods, and as they are then flying, they are impossible to photograph effectively.

Anyway this one was a bit special, Helophilus pendulus, a very colourful species that I have already seen at Dene Park and The Elgar Wildlife Pond at Hadlow earlier in the year, but still a bit unusual. The striped waistcoat is shared by this and only three other genera. This is the commonest species of the commonest of these four genera.

Here is a good shot of the large paired buff-yellow patches on the abdominal tergites two and three, with the more greyish "commas" on tergite four. The black transverse stripes don't quite reach the edge of tergites 2 and 3, and there are thin yellow back edges to each of these tergite plates just visible. Critically the hind tibia are pale/yellowish rather than black for at least the proximal half (the insect's left rear leg tibia is visible in this photo, the right leg tibia is folded underneath the body). These are all species diagnostic characteristics:

and here is a different view showing the black stripe down the centre of the otherwise yellow face, and the mainly blackish tarsi (note these are also species characteristics)

Now I haven't begun to look at molluscs yet, but clearly they are all around, just waiting to be identified. This snail was on a hogweed leaf that was strongly affected by powdery mildew, fungal species that grow only in and the epidermal cells of the leaf, never penetrating any deeper into the plant. The snail appears to be grazing on the surface hyphae and conidia, thereby possibly doing the plant a favour! It could be the copse snail, but this would only be very, very tentative:

While this one climbing up a dead stem might just be the white-lipped banded snail, Cepea hortensis, which is by no means always banded:

So, by the end of the afternoon, quite a collection of wildlife seen in a small area, mainly by patiently looking and waiting!