The Whitlingham Bird Report for 2023 is now available to download from the Bird Reports page or from here

NORWICH: June/July leaf-miner catchup

Late June/July

My target for the spring had been to reach 50 species of Agromyzid leaf miner, but actually I've now passed 60 species, not counting various species pairs and aggregates. I won't inflict all of them on you, but some of the more interesting ones are shown below, along with a couple of interesting moth mines.

Probably the pick of the bunch was Nemorimyza posticata in Canadian Goldenrod in the city centre, a new species for Norfolk with about 15 records for the UK.


Next up was Liriomyza puella, a recent colonist on Nipplewort. My find of it in a friend's garden was only the 6th UK record, so it would have taken top billing had I not found the 4th UK record (and 1st Norfolk record) last year! As often happens, I found it again a few days later.


You'd struggle to call many leaf mines spectacular to look at, but I think that Phytomyza bipunctata on Globe Thistle qualifies. This was new to Norfolk when I found it last year at Waterloo Park.


Another species I'd been trying to find was Aulagromyza tremulae on Aspen, and I managed to find it on a tree near the Wensum.


Other new species for me included Phytomyza aquilegia, Liriomyza sonchi, Agromyza nigrescens and Phytomyza hellebori.

In terms of moths I found mines of Chrysoesthia sexguttella on Chenopodium, the first city centre record for 15 years, before finding it again in TG21 where it was a new 10km square record. This was followed by a Phyllonorycter-like fold on Rowan caused by Parornix scoticella, again a new TG21 record.






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