It didn't take long to go through last night's garden trap (17 moths of eight species and nothing of particular interest) so I decided to have another look around the garden for leaf-mines in this morning's sunshine. I concentrated on our willow
Salix babylonica and apple
Malus domestica which still have the majority of their leaves and found evidence of three species new to this year's garden list. On the former were two active mines of
Stigmella obliquella, while the latter produced a vacated mine of
Stigmella oxyacanthella and an active mine of
Stigmella incognitella which is a first for the site. It takes the number of Nepticulid species (
Stigmella and
Ectoedemia) found in the garden to 26 of which only five have been confirmed via dissection at the adult stage, the remainder having been identified solely by finding their distinctive larval mines.
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| Mine of Stigmella obliquella on willow, Westcott 20th October |
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Mine of Stigmella incognitella on apple, Westcott 20th October
(ignore the mine of Lyonetia clerkella running top to bottom on
the left hand side of the image) |
Dave Wilton
Westcott, Bucks
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