neilmoths's blog

Still plenty of invertebrates around, look for leafmines!

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Leafmines provide a way of finding many otherwise difficult to find species, as the adults are very rarely found, and even when they are can be very hard to indentify.  The species are also often very under-recorded so provide very valuable records.  There are some excellent online resources to help indentify leafmines.

Emmetia angusticollella

Not often that preparing dinner provides a tick

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I was preparing dinner the other night and noticed tenanted mines on the sugarsnap peas I was about to cook! They were purchased from Tesco, Princes Risborough (Bucks, VC24) and originate from the USA. They are tenanted, and appear to be a Liriomyza species.  Following a post on the UK leafminers which seemed to confirm my initial diagnosis of genus.  As this is a potential notifiable pest species (and I wanted to find out what it was!), I sent the bag of peas to FERA, and Chris Malumphy has...

Highlights on a dull day

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Following Martin Harvey's post last week about some excellent plants he'd seen very close to where I live in south Buckinghamshire,I finally had a chance to get out this morning to go to Lodge Hill SSSi to look for Meadow Saxifrage, a plant I'd not seen before.  It wasn't a great day for botanising, an overcast morning with the stiff cold wind, but they were still there in full flower, about 30 flower-heads in total.  

 

 

I also found the Shepherd's-needle Martin had...

Looking for the Townhall Clock

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Moschatel or Townhall Clock, Adoxa moschatellina

For the first time in ages, I had a couple of hours available today to get out and look for things, so I went looking for Moschatel, also known as Townhall Clock.  This is not a common species in Buckinghamshire, and is in flower now, so worth having a look for it, if you have not seen it before.  This was a new species for me today!  It gets its name...

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