A few more leaf mines

 

On Hazel I found a couple nfy (new for year),. so that's both the Phyllonorycter mine species on this tree sorted for 2022!

A single first cycle Phyllonorycter nicellii, the Phyllonorycter found on the underside of Hazel leaves, was spotted on the main circuit, near the dead Ash trees. Hardly any other Hazel was actually checked. As usual you see the nibbled windows around the edge of the mine from the upperside, together with the pulled up ridge, and then the silvered lower epidermis from the underside. The common name is the Red Hazel Midget.

And close by there was a single Phyllonorycter coryli, the larva of the nut leaf blister moth, with the silvered upper epidermis visible in the highly distorted valley of the puckered up leaf. 

 

Early leaf mines

 

My first finds this year of several Phyllonorycter esperella, the Dark Hornbeam Midget, on the upper-surface of the leaves of Hornbeam, Carpinus betulus. 

This could perhaps be Stigmella lapponica, on what looks like Downy Birch, Betula pubescens, whose egg should be on the underside of the leaf, but Stigmella confusella is another possibility with its egg on the upperside of the leaf

Eriocrana salopiella (probably)

 

A very nice find of an early mine of the Small Birch Purple, Eriocrana salopiella, (Stainton, 1854). The genus name Eriocrana refers to the adults' fluffy heads and translates roughly as "woolly-headed", and it's salopiella because it was first found to be identified near Shrewsbury by Mr. Stainton. 

As it's quite early in the year, it is more likely to be salopiella rather than Eriocrana sparrmannella, which is a bit more of a summer species.

 

Holly Hill

 

A lovely woodland walk with Mark Pritchard.

There were some amazing trees, including a few giant Beeches. This one had dropped a very large branch, with Beech Tarcrust and also this Mazegill bracket fungal fruiting body on it. So far nothing seems to fit as far as an ID goes!

The underside of the Mazegill,

And a more closely cropped view

and the upper surface of the brackets, felt dry and a bit fluffy:

Here are some pictures of the tree, the first taken against the morning light from the North:

The main trunk

A closer view of the basal cavity

Coleophora species on Hawthorn

 

I have been able to find a few larval cases on Hawthorn, mainly Crataegus monogyna or the hybrid I think. The ones I found look similar to each other and are I am afraid unidentifiable down to species, but they are still fascinating to see, so here is a picture that I was quite pleased with, not the one taken with the phone!

 

Wet Beech trees

Chilton Magic Garden

Peniophora cinerea on dead Ash

 

On some of the dead young Ash trees at Hucking there was a grey crust. The characteristics were firstly there was no obvious differently coloured margin, which was also quite sharply edged and adhering closely to the bark (adnate). The colouration of the thin dry crust was what I would call dove grey. Much of the surface of the crust was criss-crossed with small jagged cracks (it was "ribose") which would have appeared as it dried out, so that it appeared quite scaly.

I also found something similar on some of the coppiced regrowth, on stools deeper in the woods.