Food Plant: Salix repens (Creeping Willow)

Egg: underside of leaf

Mine: June-July; September-October

Notes: A short gallery, almost filled with frass, which usually follows the leaf edge then becomes a blotch, with dispersed frass, and occupying half the leaf. The vacated mines appear black. A rare miner in the UK, restricted to coastal sand dunes in south-east England and Kent. The larva is yellow to brownish yellow. A close-up of the underside of a mine, showing the distinctive orange-brown egg, just visible through the coating of hairs at the start of the mine. One of the S. salicis clusters occasionally uses Salix repens, but this cluster lays its eggs on the upperside of the leaf.

Data: 04.iv.2022, Dungeness, Kent, VC15

Image:© Will Langdon