Queendown Warren

 

This looks to me like a typical mine of the Hawthorn Midget, Phyllonorycter corylifoliella (Hübner, 1796), tending to locate over the midrib or one of the main veins. A silvery surface to the mine with spirals or rings of brown specks of frass quite obvious, especially in comparison to the silvery mines of Phyllonorycter leucographella. This appears to be a very common mine, found a bit more often in East Kent than West Kent. The mines are found increasingly through the summer into the autumn. I found about a dozen possibles today, so why don't I see them at Dene Park? Is it because this is a moth that prefers more open woodlands? I have seen it around towards the gravel pits, so this seems possible. I should check the hedgerows perhaps.

This leaf seems to have a fairly thick frass-filled gallery leading to a blotch, which was now untenanted. There was an egg on the underside of the leaf. I came across about 5 similar mines at Queendown. Could this be Ectoedemia atricollis (Stainton, 1857), although it doesn't look much like some of the other examples I suspect to be this species, where the gallery follows the leaf margin closely and seems rather narrower.

 

These curled-over brown lobe tips look a bit like very old mines of Parornix anglicella (Stainton, 1850). 

Leafminers in Dene Park

Stigmella hemargyrella on Beech, the one with the egg away from the midrib.

Possibly the Pinch-barred Pigmy, Ectoedemia atricollis (Stainton, 1857) on Hawthorn, probably specifically the Midland Hawthorn, Crataegus laevigata. There are a number of other possibilities for the mine ID, and I could not find the larva to confirm or not. However one positive sign was that I did find the egg on the margin of the leaf on the underside, as expected for Ectoedemia atricollis. If correct, it is the first time I have seen it in Dene Park, but I may have come across it on a day a few years ago down by the gravel pits. This example would be quite an early date for mines of this species. The larva tends to form a corridor initially, which very often follows the margin of the leaf around, but eventually forms a blotch mine. as shown here This caterpillar can be found on other Rosaceous hosts, such as apple and cherry as well as hawthorn.

The Scarce Aspen Midget, Phyllonorycter sagitella,

 

On the Aspen semi-sapling to the east of the main path up from the dog-bin, about half a dozen mines, most vacated. This used to be a rare micro-moth in the UK, confined to the wetter west, although with quite a wide distribution across Europe, but has now spread extensively, with quite a few records in the Southeast, including Kent, with quite a few records on the Kent Moths Facebook page.

I suppose these could be the older mines of the first generation, as the pupae appear to have already hatched out into adults rather than overwintering as pupae, which I assume that they do? But are there genuinely two generations, KMG seem to suggest not?

Fascinating to see the split open pupal cases half projecting from some of the mines, indicating the departure of the next generation of adults. 

Coed Fron Wylt

Lovely walk around the main path, ash trees looking a bit worse than last year.

Enjoyed finding an empty first generation mine of Stigmella tityrella on a Beech leaf, underside egg neatly placed in a midrib axil, mine wiggling between two veins towards the margin before the larva eventually exited the leaf.

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.