More early stages

An hour looking around the garden this afternoon in very hazy sunshine produced a few more species.  Yellow-tail caterpillars were out and about, three late-instars on Blackthorn and one early instar on Swedish Whitebeam.  

Yellow-tail larva on Blackthorn, Westcott 28th April

Removing some sprawling White Dead-nettles from on top of our patch of Calamint produced obvious feeding signs on the hidden leaves and a quick check on the underside of a couple of stems produced three active cases of Coleophora albitarsella (a species classified as local).  I haven't previously noticed its early stages in the garden but examples of the adult from here have been dissected almost annually for at least the last 15 years so it is obviously resident.  That find prompted me to look at the copious amounts of Ground Ivy in the garden (another food-plant used by albitarsella) and, sure enough, a handful of additional cases were found on it.  

Mined leaves (and partially obscured active case of
Coleophora albitarsella just visible) on Calamint,
Westcott 28th April

Mined leaves on Ground Ivy, Westcott 28th April

Active case of Coleophora albitarsella on Ground Ivy,
Westcott 28th April

Best find of the afternoon, though, was some unexpected activity on our youngest Silver Birch (one of four in the garden, the other three being mature and their leaves unreachable without a ladder!).  This particular sapling, only about 8ft tall, had been in a pot for several years and was only planted out last summer.  I was very pleased to find some very early Eriocrania leaf-mining under way on at least half a dozen of its very small leaves.  Five of the mines could easily be identified as Eriocrania sangii because of the obvious dark grey larvae within, while the other was a different species and I suspect Eriocrania semipurpurella although it'll have to wait until it is larger to be sure because I don't want to damage the leaves.  Neither species has been recorded in the garden before.

Early mine of Eriocrania sangii, Westcott 28th April
Can anyone identify the aphid?!

Dave Wilton Westcott, Bucks