Fox Covert

Back to Dene Park, and diverting off to Fox Covert and the field beside it.

At the top of the field I found a few small folds at the tip of the lobes of Sycamore leaves, which I thought might be indicative of a Caloptilia species. This could be the Small Red Slender, Caloptilia rufipennella, found in the UK since the 1970s. The moth over-winters, perhaps in an evergreen such as Yew and reappears about spring. The mines are formed in sycamore leaves around, first as a small mine tucked into a vein axil, and you then get usually 3 "leaf tip folds - cones?" of increasing size in which the larvae continue to feed.