Warndon Orthosias

2 Common Quakers in garden trap on Wednesday night with 3 Beautiful Plumes and Ypsolopha ustella as back up. Hebrew Character last night - shame it looked like it had come through the hedge backwards.
Steve Whitehouse

Common Quaker

Hebrew Character 

Psychoides verhuella / filicivora larvae

A few days ago I was trying to identify (in the field) some Psychoides larvae feeding on Hart's-tongue Fern. Looking at the tiny larvae, with a 4X hand lens, I was struggling to see which of the two species I had, but, in a good light and with enough magnification they really are quite different.

Patrick Clement

Acleris schalleriana, new moth.

Acleris schalleriana

In need of a moth fix, I left a 15 W actinic in Uffmoor Wood last night while running an MV at home.
10 species in total, mostly the usual suspects, but Acleris schalleriana was a new species for my Halesowen garden and for me.
Best runner-up was Small Brindled Beauty from Uffmoor.

Patrick Clement

Trench Wood actinic

With solid cloud forecast and mild conditions, put a 15w actinic in a secluded (and muddy) part of the wood last night for 4 hours. Had to pack up early when it cleared at 22:30. 8 species included 5 March Moths, 2 Small Brindled Beauty, 3 Pale Brindled Beauty, 2 Dotted Border, Satellite, 5 Chestnuts, Spring Usher and an Agonopterix heracliana. Nice to see a few moths. Got home and another Spring Usher was on back garage doorframe! Steve Whitehouse

Pale Brindled Beauty

Spring Usher

 

Little Cowarne, Herefordshire 2014

I arrived in the rental house early February last year and stayed in the end for 9 months, leaving the end of November - so almost a full season. I missed the July really warm spell as I was away in Northern Scotland, so I was surprised with how many species I recorded for a first year. The total stands at 403 species. The garden sits in a very rural spot surrounded by sheep grazed fields, so I wasn't expecting too much activity. Some of these that I regard as nice records, you'll regards as common (I'm new to the area): Scarlet Tiger, Garden Tiger, Muslin Footman, Silver Cloud and Argyresthia trifasciata. The split was 150 micro species and 253 macros. Peter Hall

More Woodiana

Since I can't post photos in a 'comment'...

Billy,

Weevil mine in Viscum

Tony and I spent some time last year surveying old orchards for this species and managed to put a few more dots on the map. There is one record from 'Worcester City' in 1980  and a vague old reference in Bradley to a record from Droitwich. These are isolated by some distance from the rest of the records which are to the south and east.

While looking for this species last year we did establish that a weevil, most likely Ixapion variegatum which normally feeds in the stems, can on occasion mine a leaf. The larvae are creamy white, c shaped and lethargic compared to woodiana larvae which are green. My photo shows such a mine. In this one the initial frass filled track has been absorbed into the developing blotch. Looking at your photos, I wonder if your mine might belong to one of these weevils although it is hard to tell from the photo and I am certainly not sure. If the larva tends to appear c shaped and pale I suspect that is what it is. If it is mobile and not permanently curled up then you probably have woodiana. I would not be surprised if early instars are not the bright green they end up being later on.

The moths we bred last year were from much more mature mines found in early May, at which time they are near full fed. I suspect keeping such an early one alive would be a challenge although you can keep mistletoe looking reasonably fresh for some time standing it in water.

One thing to do is revisit the trees a little later in the season, say from mid April, when woodiana mines will be much larger and the larvae easy to confirm. In the meantime you might give Tony a shout let him have a look at your mine.

Celypha woodiana

With a couple of minutes to spare before a statistics lecture yesterday I decided to check a small clump of Mistletoe - growing on a Hawthorn in one of the car parks at Worcester University - on the off chance that I might stumble across the mines of the enigmatic Celypha woodiana (I'm an exciting student).

Surprisingly, the first leaf I checked had the active early stage of a leaf-mine, with a couple of vacated mines nearby. Certainly not a species I expected to find on an isolated clump of Mistletoe in a busy car park on a university campus, but perhaps it isn't as restricted in its habitat needs as the literature would suggest?

Celypha woodiana

Celypha woodiana

If anyone has any tips for rearing C. woodiana, feel free to share them!