Little finds

Some of the best finds can be unexpected and completely accidental.

En-route to pick up a car earlier in the week there was a detour, so I stopped at a lay-by to confer with Mr. Google. I spotted this wonderful little moth out of the car window and jumped out with the camera. It's the Latticed Heath:

Latticed Heath Moth

This is a Clover feeder and is found in grassy areas. One generation in this area.

New to my species list.

Yesterday I was called out to examine what appears to be a fungal rust on Himalayan Balsam:

Fungal attack on Himalayan Balsam

This is an extremely invasive plant, and it has now reached most parts of Britain and Ireland. To date the local populations have been free from predators or parasites, since it is an introduced alien. But last year I found a leaf-miner and now we have this fungal rust, so perhaps we can expect populations to begin to weaken. That might just open up opportunities for other parasites to take hold, so perhaps we're seeing the start of some kind of weakening/control. I can certainly confirm that the miner has spread very rapidly and has now been found in perhaps half a dozen new sites around the country, some hundreds of kilometres apart.

After I had examined the rust, I went back to the car-park to find a stand of Comfrey on a stream-bank. Some of the leaves had a fungal attack and I have now identified this as Melampsorella symphyti:

The fungal rust Melampsorella symphyti on Comfrey

There are very few records of this on the FRDBI and seems it's new to Ireland.

A few more recent images are instructive:

This is the excellent Nettle associate Calocoris stysi: 

The Mirid Bug Calocoris stysi

The leaf-mining fly Pegomyia solennis is one of the few that are communal. Always found on Rumex sp., especially Broad-leaved Dock:

Larvae of the communal Dock miner Pegomyia solennis

Some leafhoppers are absolutely minute. This is the Meadowsweet specialist Eupteryx signatipennis, about 3 mm. long:

Meadowsweet specialist leafhopper Eupteryx signatipennis

New to my species list.

Finally, another oddity. I have a huge Lavatera bush in my garden and it is usually covered in bees, wasps and hoverflies all nectaring. I had assumed that the bees were gathering pollen, too, but it seems that the pollen is no use to Honeybees and Bumblebees: they actively remove it after they have taken the nectar:

Honeybee removing pollen from Lavatera.

Note the empty pollen baskets.