Northern Eggar, Mompha raschkiella and Beetles

The first of my Barden Moor, Northern Eggar caterpillars has produced this male imago. I photographed it this morning and it presumably took advantage of the afternoon sunshine to zoom off back towards the moorland.

My remaining caterpillar has yet to pupate.

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The second photograph shows a mine in the leaf of Rosebay Willowherb which I think was made by the larva of Mompha raschkiella.

The final picture shows five beetle larvae devouring a leaf of Rosebay Willowherb (Epilobium angustifolium).

It will be a challenge to work out which species of beetle this is!

A Stoat crossed my Path

I spent another few hours on Barden Moor yesterday and found this female Philedonides lunana resting on a Cowberry leaf. It isn't recorded very often in Vice-county 64, presumably due to its early flight period.

The lunana was the last find of the day and the weather was closing in as I descended from Upper Barden Reservoir. I used the UKMoths.org.uk site to identify it, the illustration in Razowski bearing no similarity to my moth.

A Stoat crossed my path as I walked along the eastern edge of Lower Barden Reservoir where the Cowberry grows in abundance.

I was already pleased with myself having located a couple of examples of Phyllonorycter junoniella and a Northern Eggar caterpillar.

I can now categorically state that the multitude of dark larvae spinning the Cowberry here are Olethreutes mygindiana; one of these emerged, yesterday, from a specimen collected earlier.