First larval find of the year.

I made a visit to Broadway Wood this morning to have a look at a patch of Wild Raspberry that I had noticed two years ago. I had always intended to have a look at this site for the larvae of Lampronia corticella, but last year I missed the rather short window in the spring when they are feeding in the shoots.
This morning I found a good quantity of the foodplant - more than I remembered. I only found two larvae which makes me think that most have already pupated. They were feeding at the base of shoots which were noticeably stunted or chewed off entirely, leaving a frass filled cavity into the pith.
Hopefully these will produce adults in a few weeks.

In Worcestershire we have one 'recent' record from Moseley in Birmingham in 1987 and a couple of old specimens in the Worcester Museum dated to the 1870's.

I would not be surprised if this moth is under-recorded and any patches of wild growing Raspberry in woodland would be worth searching.

Oliver Wadsworth