My first post for a while... (I've been hors de combat).
Incredibly, it seems that I topped and tailed the 2024 flight season: I know of no adult records subsequent to mine on Aug 11th, nationally...
It looks as though larvae are in low or very low numbers this early autumn, though I'm only just getting into the swing of looking for them. I've had a big session in Savernake, and have looked in Cirencester Park Woods and at Lambourn (the latter two sites only support very small populations).
Bad news: None so far at Cirencester and Lambourn, and a big session yesterday in Savernake (3 searchers, totalling 14 hours of actual foliage searching) produced only one mid-2nd instar larva and a 1st instar fail + egg case base. Here's the one we found, showing distinctive feeding marks on a classic midgreen soft matt leaf -
One major breeding area in Sav drew a total blank, suggesting that Herself hadn't wandered there.
The main problem at all three of my study sites is finding suitable foliage: sallows in exposed or open situations are heavily infested by Melampsora Willow Rust, and / or are too thick-leaved (because the sallows came into leaf ridiculously early), and many overhung sallows are heavily coated in Sallow Mildew (which proliferates in wet autumns).
Sallow foliage quality is, fortunately, quite high in shady situations. So there is Hope...
Here's a Tree Damsel Bug Himacerus apterus, found on sallow in Sav yesterday. This is a serial killer of caterpillars and persona non grata on sallows (I translocated it onto a birch tree, and told it to Go and Sin No More)...
