Mine's Really Good!

Well, this was going to be a post all about mines, a thing which I've only started getting into, but this recent bad weather has blown most of the leaves away, so b*gger that!!

Anyhow, started doing mines a week or two ago, and managed to muster up 15 or so species in my local area, most of which were new for me, such as Stigmella salicis and Ectoedemia intimella, but others to turn up include 2 Parornix species and several Phyllonorycters, amongst other Stigmella and some Caloptilia. Unfortunately, the best moth mine I managed wasn't new for me, as I had one adult last year. It is the nationally scarce Cosmopterix pulchrimella. The adults are fantastic, albeit a bit small, being black, silver and orange in colour!

Sadly, C. pulchrimella wasn't locally found, but from my weekend away, enjoying the extreme winds of Cornwall. Yeah.. we went surfing in Cornwall during the peak storm time, which, don't get me wrong, is usually good, but they caused waves.. Big waves.. Very Big Waves.. So we were at the surfing beach of Perranporth, and after a day of surfing and a quick nap, we awoke to find the beach closed. Shame that. Only managed to find 6 moths, all larvae apart from an adult Silver Y. The others were 2 mines, pulchrimella and Stigmella aurella, which anyone whose looked at any Bramble at this time of year, will have seen them, little squiggles on the leaf. The other larvae were the combo of Fox Moth, Drinker & Oak Eggar, all in the same spot.

Now here's a pic of the surf.. It may look like small waves, but may I point out the size of the building above. Now, buildings are quite big (shock horror!!), so yeah, these waves were pretty big (with the help of minor exaggeration, let's agree that they were 30ft tall)