Holm Oaks

Following on from Will's post earlier, I did a little bit of winter leaf-mining myself yesterday, although came to regret it after an idiot tried to drive a 16ft high lorry under a 15ft railway bridge on the A41 which resulted in all the local minor roads becoming clogged with traffic!  I was looking for evergreen oaks and in the time available after sitting in queues managed to get to two trees not all that far from home here in Bucks, one near the church in Quainton (cut back since my last visit, so only a few leaves accessible) and a couple in a cemetery in Middle Claydon.  As expected, all were covered in mines of Ectoedemia heringella, mostly vacated or containing deceased larvae (the species seems to have a very high mortality rate at this stage), but I did manage to find one or two that were active.

Mines of Ectoedemia heringella, 17th December

Active mine of Ectoedemia heringella, 17th December

This is an easy species to record at the moment because I imagine every tree in our three counties must be infested with these mines.  The difficulty if anything is finding the trees themselves because there seem to be few in the wider countryside.  They're often found in churchyards or on country estates and do at least stand out at the moment now that most deciduous trees have dropped their leaves.

I also had a quick look around the garden yesterday and found active mines of Stigmella aurella on bramble and Phyllonorycter leucographella on pyracantha, two more species which can be found all year round.

Active mine of Stigmella aurella, Westcott 17th December

Active mines of Phyllonorycter leucographella,
Westcott 17th December

Dave Wilton Westcott, Bucks