More on the Phyllonorycter story, though - see Monday's blog, bear with me, there's nothing much else going on! I've been inspecting foliage on trees in my mini-orchard for leaf mines. It's a near impossible task on the cherry tree, the leaves are a very popular source of food and are full of holes and diverse blemishes (see photo of perforated foliage). However, part of a hedge very close to the potting shed is a hazel bush whose leaves bear a number of what appear to be blister-mines:
Could these blisters have been made by Phyllonorycter coryli? If so, it seems that the moths I caught on Monday are more likely to be this species than P.ceracisolella. Even though one of them was beaten form the cherry tree, the other was on the shed door which is much closer to the hazel bush than the cherry tree.
Yes those are P. coryli, one of our commonest miners. As the adults of this species look very similar to a number of other Phyllo. species, I have to admit I tend to ignore them when they turn up in the moth trap (though they could be confimed by dissection) and instead try and record them via their leaf mines. There are, though, quite a few Phyllo. species that can be safely recorded as adults (without dissection) so it's always worth checking them.
ReplyDeleteThat's very helpful, George (sorry for the delay, I've been away for a few days). Presumably 1 blister = 1 moth, so I can safely record these as coryli but the two adults from my earlier blog are best recorded as Phyllo sp., I'm aware that there are several species with much the same wing markings as cerasicolella, including coryli it seems.
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