COMMENTS AND NOTES ON SOME SUFFOLK MOTHS IN 2009

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NOTES ON SOME SUFFOLK MOTHS 2009

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COMMENTS AND NOTES ON SOME SUFFOLK MOTHS IN 2009 A. W. PRICHARD Most recorders seemed to find the moth recording season of 2009 an improvement on the previous couple of years. A dry warm spring continued through to June to be followed by a rather wet July that limited moth recording during the peak of the recording season. Fortunately drier weather returned in August and the autumn also remained largely dry and warm. The eriocranids are a small group of micro-lepidoptera known as ‘Purples’, mostly appearing in early spring but with some emerging a little later into May. All of the eight species found in Britain have been recorded in Suffolk. One species, Eriocrania subpurpurella (Haw.) feeds on oak Quercus and another E. chrysolepidella Zeller feeds on Hornbeam Carpinus while the remaining six species feed on birch Betula. E. subpurpurella is easily identified as an adult or from its mine and is a common and widespread species in Suffolk. E .chrysolepidella is currently known from one site in the county at Wolves Wood RSPB Reserve. Our knowledge of the distribution and status of the birch-feeding species has been rather limited as the adults can be tricky to identify without resorting to dissection and consequently we have few records of this group. Until recently determination of the larval mines has been similarly difficult, but recent keys in Bengtsson & Palmqvist [2008] and on the leaf-miner web site www.leafmines.co.uk have enabled these birchfeeding species to be identified from their mines. Searches for the larval mines in 2009 by TP and NS would seem to indicate that the birch-feeding species are likely to be reasonably common wherever the foodplant occurs. Eriocrania unimaculella (Zetterstedt), E. semipurpurella (Stephens) and E. cicatricella (Zetterstedt) were all found at Wherstead Woods, Reydon Wood, Tunstall Common and Westleton Heath. E. unimaculella was also found at Thorpeness and E. cicatricella at Blaxhall Common and Ipswich Golf Course. E. sangii (Wood) was also found at Wherstead Woods, Tunstall Common, Thorpeness Golf Course and Blaxhall Common. Both it and E. semipurpurella were found at Walberswick. E. semipurpurella in addition was found Thorpeness, Blaxhall Common, Ipswich Golf Course and Lower Hollesley Common. The remaining two species appear a little later; E. sparrmannella (Bosc) was found at Hinderclay Fen and Tattingstone while E. salopiella (Stainton) was found at Hinderclay Fen and Ipswich Golf Course. Recorders are encouraged to look for these species at a time in the year when moth recording is not at its peak. At the other end of the recording season but still on the subject of leafminers, the Suffolk Moth Group held its annual leaf-miner recording day at Town Marshes, Eye on 10 October. This site provided some interesting records; the most notable being mines of Ectoedemia hannoverella (Glitz) in the leaves of Black Poplar hybrids Populus × canadensis. This appears to be the first record in the county away from its previously known centres in the Ipswich/Woodbridge area and the Brecks. Two species found on lime Tilia were also noteworthy: Stigmella tiliae (Frey) and Roeslerstammia erxlebella (Fab.), the larva of the latter species only mines the leaves in its first instar and the mine is characteristically made in the very tip of lime leaves. The

Trans. Suffolk Nat. Soc. 46 (2010)


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