In addition to the mines of
Eriocrania sangii (see earlier post), Friday afternoon's dog-walk to the Westcott Venture Park entrance produced an example of
Aspilapteryx tringipennella which was disturbed from the grass. Yesterday's walk to the same area was taken later, at dusk, and I found activity from at least half a dozen small micros at one particular spot around some long grass beneath a line of poplars. One was brought home and it proved to be
Elachista rufocinerea which doesn't seem to be known from this part of the county, so that was a nice find (there are 24 records from nine different sites in Bucks and it is likely to be under-recorded). The latter doesn't yet feature on my garden list so its nice to know that it is active only a few hundred metres away!
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| Aspilapteryx tringipennella, Westcott 24th April |
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| Elachista rufocinerea, Westcott 25th April |
Yesterday in the garden I found a smart hairy caterpillar on blackthorn. The chances are that at only 15mm it is a mid-instar, so despite being well-marked it is perhaps not surprising that, yet again, the new field guide failed to provide an obvious ID, but I think it may perhaps be Pale Eggar. Does anyone recognise it?
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| Caterpillar, Westcott 25th April |
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| Caterpillar, Westcott 25th April |
Finally, another nice find in the garden yesterday was a very early web of caterpillars from one of the
Yponomeuta species on our well-established spindle, the first occasion I've ever found larvae on it. It was not possible to count them accurately but there appear to be about 30 altogether. The chances are that they will be
Yponomeuta cagnagella and I shall try to rear them through to be sure. It would be a new species for the garden because I usually don't bother recording that group (
padella/
malinellus/
cagnagella) which are indistinguishable as adults. Apart from
cagnagella, two others feed on spindle but I've only had
plumbella in the garden a couple of times and the last occasion was nine years ago (that one is easily identifiable as an adult anyway) while
irrorella is a rare species limited to the south coast.
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| Yponomeuta sp larval web, Westcott 25th April |
Dave Wilton
Westcott, Bucks
I think you're on the right track with Pale Eggar Dave - UKleps has a fairly similar one, and see http://www.pyrgus.de/Trichiura_crataegi_en.html
ReplyDeleteThanks very much indeed, Martin. I found another image via a Google search which looks a very good match too and that was actually on the main BC website (https://butterfly-conservation.org/moths/pale-eggar), so I'm now convinced it was Pale Eggar. It is a common enough moth in the garden here during its flight season in the early autumn.
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