Grey carpet

After going through the trap one morning (06/06/06!) we noticed this little beauty on the Sparganium in the old pond

We released it at a site, where we had netted one at dusk a week or so before, that had flixweed which is grey carpet's food plant. She started laying eggs within a minute of release

We followed her activities and marked the plants with eggs with torn strips of biscuit wrapper and visited a few weeks later to find several fairly large caterpillars. It will be interesting to see what happens next year

Size doesn't matter

This is a moth, Phyllonorycter platani, and its larvae develop in London plane tree leaves

This is how the mine looks on the upper surface of the leaf

The under side is whitish, this one has already been vacated

The pupa was in a silk sac and all the frass is at one end

The adult is small but extremely beautiful