Phyllonorycter and Caloptilia on Field Maple

At the far end of the Access Trail woodland shaw, where we put the extra brick footings down the other year, there was a small Field Maple with a few folded leaf tip lobes that looked like Caloptilia mine follow-on folds.

This turned out to be Phyllonorycter acerifoliella, (Zeller, 1839), the Maple Midget, a bi-voltine leaf miner. The mines can be found in small numbers in May and, more frequently, in September and October. These mines are presumably partly the current generation of mines, and so some should really contain larvae or pupae that are about to over-winter.

The pupa should be blackish brown in a tight, thin-walled cocoon that is attached to the floor of the mine; all frass is accumulated in the opposite corner of the mine.

First seen from the upperside, then the underside:

and here is another example:

This is another, more recent mine, which I cannot identify, as it doesn't look at all like typical Phyllonorycter acerifoliella. It could possibly be Phyllonorycter joanissii from Norway Maple, which this mine closely resembles, but this is generally judged very unlikely. In the past Andy Banthorpe has identified this type of mine away from the edge as atypical Phyllonorycter acerifoliella.

Again, first from the upperside, then the underside:

a closer view:

Hopefully these Phyllonorycter acerifoliella folded leaf lobe mines will not be confused again with Caloptilia leaf lobe folds, as I first did!!

Now this looks more like a Caloptilia:

Viewed first from the upperside, then the underside:

On Field Maple, Acer campestre, in the UK this would seem to be most likely to be Caloptilia semifascia  (Haworth, 1828), the "Maple Slender". This is found on the Field Maple in the UK

The very early mine is a gallery leading soon to a small triangular or squarish blotch. Later the larvae move out to form up to three successive tubes or cones by folding the tips of leaves downwards, in which they live. On this plant there were usually only one or two folded leaf lobes per leaf. The larvae are said to be greenish with a lighter head.

The mines are supposed to occur in June - July and the ones shown here do generally look quite fairly old. Pupation is said to be in a flat, parchment-like, shining, yellowish white cocoon on either side of the leaf, but generally near the margin. I imagine that pupae are quite difficult to find in July(ish), and I haven't found any yet. The moth then flies until October, and after hibernating, again in May, before egg-laying.

However, another minor possibility on Field Maple is Caloptilia rufipennella (Hubner, 1796), which is found almost entirely on Sycamore and only rarely on Field Maple in the UK, although apparently on a wider range of Acers, including again Field Maple, on the continent. This species was only first identified on any Acer species in the UK in 1970, and is still a bit local in its distribution although spreading well. Because of its rarity on other hosts, at least according to current records, we can fairly discount it as a likely record in this case. It also has to be said that the information about host preference on different web-sites is quite contradictory in my view.

The initial feeding blotch mines are very difficult to find, and distinguish from other feeding marks, again in my limited experience, and I haven't identified one at all yet. 

Access Trail

Wandered along the shaw on the normal Bourne walk as the light faded this evening, I looked at one of the small Field Maples at the far end and found a few few folded down leaf lobe tips. I wasn't sure whether these folds indicated a Caloptilia as I had first thought, or possibly Phyllonorycter acerifoliella (Zeller, 1839), the Maple Midget. In the end I think at least one leaf tip roll turned out to be the latter, although the revealed mine proved to be empty.

It is regarded as common with the mines occurring in July (presumably this one, hence emptied, with an exit hole) and October.

Eight Mallards overflew in a group. Not much else around, as it was getting very dark.

Access Trail and a couple of old stagers

Along the Access Trail to check for Butterflies - and the "old stagers" of two Peacocks and One Comma popped up along the herbicide strip alongside the Access Trail to reassure me that there are usually at least some butterflies there, these species having bravely over-wintered, and lasted until now!

The Comma was resting on the leaves of the Elms beyond the dip, looking quite tatty:

The second of the two Peacocks posed on one of the fence posts. The broad body seems to sit in a little "valley" of the cupped inner wing. The thorax hairs have been worn entirely off.

There were also a coupled of male Banded Demoiselle's seen.

Access Trail

A nice walk down the section of the Access Trail from the Victoria Road lay-by, focusing mainly on insects. I saw quite a few Azure Damselflies along the sunnier parts of the trail.

This is a male Azure Damselfly, Coenagrion puella.

This next male with a dip in its abdomen, is munching away on an aphid. Nice view of the beerglass on S2.

And here is a closer-up view, interesting to see how the pronotum is angled upwards.

This next picture is a female, a common dark variation on the blue homochromic form. The colours on the top of the head and thorax seem fairly pale - recently hatched perhaps?

A quick whizz around a breezy access trail and reservoir

At nearly 4 pm I set off with Monty through the village to the start of the Access Trail, across Great Court, then down towards Victoria Lane, Malt Cottage and the Reservoir, then back along the River Bourne, the Green Lane to the Red Pond and then reversing our course back through Great Court to home, getting back towards 6 pm.

I found a Periphyllus aphid species on the Sycamore, Acer pseudoplatanus, on the Access Trail together with aestivating nymphs, and again on one of the trees just downstream of Goldhill Mill, together with a small midge species. On the English or Atinian Elm, Ulmus minor 'Atinia', there was evidence of a leaf-curling aphid, presumably originally caused by Eriosoma ulmi, but now apparently inhabited by a "normal" green aphid.

There were apparent fledgelings for the Greylag/Whiter Goose, and for another pair of Greylags on the reservoir. A small group of Goldfinches were in the tall hedge running South of the reservoir to the River Bourne. I saw one Swallow over the field to the East of the Bourneside bridge, and one Swift over the Acccess Trail. There were Blackcaps, Chiffchaffs, Robins and Blackbirds along the Green Lane section of the Access Trail. Woodpigeons and Chaffinches were everywhere.

On the bank of the reservoir, the trefoils were in good flower. On the way back along the Church footpath I checked the Bittercress on the side of the tarmac - and it was Hairy Bittercress of course, with only four stamens. There was also Green Alkanet and Common Fumitory along the same path.

A grey evening on the Access Trail

A slight breeze and grey skies kept the temperature down this evening.

My first surprise was re-finding the tiny patch, about 2 square metres, of Shepherds's Needle, Scandix pecten-veneris, just by the Victoria Lane entrance to the Access Trail, just a little further on than I thought I had seen it two years ago. The unequal petals can be seen in the picture below, and the "comb-like" fruit can be seen in the one below that.

There are Forget-me-nots all over the countryside at the moment, and I think these are one of the common ones, either the Field Forget-me-not Myosotis arvensis, or the Wood Forget-me-not, Myosotis sylvatica, with longer pedicels and larger, flatter flowers. I think it is very difficult to tell, and I must get my measuring tape out next time I'm walking!

In the wood there was one plant of Winter Cress, Barbarea vulgaris, probably, and there were many more in the Bourneside marshy area. The upper stem leaves are probably too "toothed" for his plant to be Early Winter Cress, Barbarea verna.

As far as birds went throughout the walk, it was very nice to see the occasional Swallow sweeping past, and also to hear a Garden Warbler, and later on, somewhere to the South of Style Place, a Cuckoo. Throughout the walk there were plenty of Chiff-chaffs, Chaffinches, Woodpigeons, Robins, Blackbirds. Here is a picture of a a Wren in a willow by the river from the Bourneside marshy meadow.

Round the reservoir and back via the Victoria Road bridge

On the reservoir banks there was a huge change in the obvious vegetation patterns. The lush mix of colour of a wide range of flowers in June has been replaced by a an almost complete cover of brown seeding grass, with dominating white Wild Carrot, Daucus carota, interspersed with a few plants of Bristly Oxtongue, Picris echioides. This is a view of the "Wild Carrot landscape" that clothed the whole of the top of the banks and the outer slopes.

On the internal banks themselves there was a bit more diversity with an apparent ecological zonation, of Common Fleabane, Pulicaria dysenterica, then Mayweed, Matricaria, and finally Grass and Wild Carrot, Daucus carota. It is interesting to speculate on the mix of physical, biological and temporal factors that created this pattern.

There was one very smart male Common Blue Butterfly on the Eastern bank of the reservoir, with great colour on the upperwing, but I only caught the undersides with the camera. Still it looked very fresh, fairly newly emerged.

Gatekeepers galore!

Several Gatekeeper "faces":

The scales of a butterfly or moth are extremely varied in form and function. Some of course are upright and fringed, the better to release the scent pheromones, such as those found in the male "sex-brands" mentioned in previous blogs or in tufts in some other species, but some are developed into extremely long hairs, as seen on the body and in these patches on the wings in this Gatekeeper. This explains why where on the insect you see the hairs you get fewer coloured scales (whether genuine pigment colours or refractive colours), a feature that I had noticed previously but never stacked up properly to draw the correct conclusion. The function of hairs is presumably primarily insulation - but I wonder how the presence of the hairs affects other things such as flight, and specifically drag, for example.

This should be a male, as it has the wide dark marks in the middle of the forewings.

The hairs on the underwing often appear more vertically orientated away from the wing - is this gravity or not? It doesn't look like it. If it's a deliberate difference, then could it be for aerodynamic purposes?

This is a fairly typical upper forewing, and again I think this should be a male with a wide dark smudge as a sex-brand in the middle of the forewing!   It is nice to see the clear brown brand around the outer edge of the wing shared by both sexes, with a neat tiny fringe of hairs at the wing edge.

Bourneside Meadow

The butterflies were superb at Bourneside Meadow today. It was particularly nice to see the Small Copper, Lycaena phlaeas, although Warren also saw it today at Pittswood and at the Nursery of Ashes Lane, so I suspect it may be more widespread across the parish than I had realised.

I saw several male Common Blue, Polyommatus icarus, males but they were moving too quickly to be photographed. These must be early representatives of the second generation of this summer, which has started just this last week, after a break of about a fortnight from the first generation. Singles or pairs are regularly seen by Warren every summer, so this suggests adults of this species should also be fairly well spread across the parish. This butterfly forms reasonably discrete colonies measured in tens or hundreds, with individuals occasionally wandering some distance.

This species is most active in sunshine and is a frequent visitor to flowers. Males are the more active of the two sexes and set up territories which they patrol in search of females. The female is less conspicuous, spending most of her time nectaring, resting and egg-laying. When egg-laying, the female makes slow flights, low over the ground, searching out suitable foodplants on which to lay. When a suitable plant is located, a single egg is laid on the upperside of a young leaf (UK butterflies), which should be fairly clearly visible.

In dull weather this species roosts head down on a grass stem. As for similar species, such as the Brown Argus, this species roosts communally at night, with several individuals occasionally found roosting on the same grass stem.

The chrysalis is attended by ants, which may take it into their nests, feeding off the honeydew it may excrete.

One of the clues as where the Common Blue breed is going to be the location of the larval food plants. I checked some of the Birds-Foot Trefoil plants in the meadow and I thought most of them were Greater Birds-Foot Trefoil, Lotus pedunculatus, but at least some definitely looked like Common Birds-Foot Trefoil, Lotus corniculatus, as in the relatively hairless plant with (only 3) orange flowers below. Both are included in the fairly wide ranging list of trefoils and medicks that are used as larval foodplants, so this species of butterfly should do well on this particularly rich patch of wild flowers.

.
I also spotted (I think) a Brown Argus, Aricia agestis, picking it out from the Small/Essex Skippers as it fluttered past me, found where it had settled, and grabbed a very poor photo just to confirm the record of the colony. The wings are a good chocolate colour and there are good orange spots around the edge, with no blue dusting towards the body, so I do not think it is a Common Blue female. From the rather rounded wings and the full extent of the orange spots it is possibly a female rather than a male Brown Argus. As it seems quite fresh this might be one of the first of the second generation this year.



On one of the Hogweed heads there was a Crabronid wasp, Crabroninae. The wings lie flat across the abdomen. It is very likely to be an Ectemnius species. Sometimes you find Cerceris species in Philanthinae but these are quite easily distinguishable, by the unevenly ridged segments of the abdomen, the head shape, the yellow face and the overall jizz,  http://www.ispotnature.org/node/281557  and http://www.ispotnature.org/node/280405. The yellow proximal sections of the antennae suggest Ectemnius rather than the otherwise very similar Crabro, where the antennae are black overall.

Another confusion possibility is Mellinus arvensis, generally late in the season, and without the yellow on the bottom of the antennae, or the silver or gold hairs on the clypeus, and with more orange rather than yellow legs.

As to getting down to species, this is very difficult - useful notes from Ardea:

"For female ID you need to get a clear view of the shape of the clypeus (basically upper lip) which you can only see well from the underside of the head, against the light. The clypeal hairs obscure the shape from the front. WIth your photos, long Mesonotal hairs, golden clypeal hairs = either lapidaries, ruficornis (scarce), cavifrons and sexcinctus."

The Bourne Valley to Malt Cottage

Walking down through the Green Lane Shaw, there were a fair number of hoverflies patrolling their territories. Most I thought were the Marmalade Hoverfly, Episyrphus balteatus, but this was a Myathropa florea that was buzzing loudly and had taken control of some leaves in a patch of sunlight.

This is Leucozona lucorum, a rather tatty specimen from the currently declining first generation.

Many of the herbaceous plants were suffering from the dryness of the soil and the heat, and were already flagging this early in the season. The Hawthorn fruit continue to swell into haws - it seems that the season is progressing very quickly indeed! There is one on the left that appears not to have been fertilised. The epidermis of the fruit is slightly hairy, at least at this stage.

Here you can see even more clearly the swelling inferior ovary, with its sparse hairs and the remains of the calyx and the other floral parts above it, apart from the petals which dropped off weeks ago.

Further along the walk the Norway Maple keys were also developing gorgeously:

The elms were starting to show the Elm Leaf Gall,

In the Green Lane, I found a moderate stand of Hedge Woundwort, Stachys sylvatica, at the Bourneside end of the shaw.

As I  moved out into the arable fields along the river, the Honeybees were working the flowering Forage Beans across the fields.

The Vetch I saw most today was in the Common Vetch aggregate, Vicia sativa. This plant looks like ssp. segetalis as in the BSBI plant crib, as it seemed more or less isophyllous, the tendrils are branched, with a clear slightly bi-coloured flower (standard somewhat paler than wings). There is more taxonomic information here http://archive.bsbi.org.uk/Wats12p1.pdf. This includes the suggestion that the calyx teeth should be shorter than the calyx tube, as here. It would be nice to check the pods and the seeds later, perhaps I should mark some typical plants so that I can go back to them in a few weeks.

This a close-up of the flower.





This ant looks yellowish, perhaps because the light is behind it. It had come down from the flower above.

This shows the dark patch generally seen on the stipules, and the hairs covering the plant.

This is the leaflets close up - its fascinating how the genes can apparently code for such a variety of leaf shapes! I wonder how long it would take a computer programmer to code for growth to produce the same results? Are the slightly spiky tips of the leaflets defensive or for some other purpose? The spikes are a bit longer in the currently cultivated form Vicia sativa ssp sativa.

Most of the Buttercups I saw today were Creeping Buttercup, Ranunculus repens. However there were patches of Meadow Buttercup, Ranunculus acris around, including at the edge of the crop in the field to the North of the bridge over the Bourne leading towards Barnes Place.

I think the beetles are flea beetles:

Many of this plant's flowers are already setting achenes, very similar to those of the Creeping Buttercup. Interesting pattern of light in these!

and this one shows the same pattern as well - air spaces around the seeds compared to double thickness wall edges perhaps? Or is it just that the seeds inside the fruit are themselves white? Anyway it's very pretty.

Here is Hedge Mustard, Sisymbium officinale, this one's buds just opening.

It was  nice to see some birds flitting around the hedgerows. The nicest I thought was this male Yellowhammer on the Eastern side of the reservoir b y Malt Cottage.

Even more heavily cropped, this Linnet: