What the Wild Things Do

Red fox prowling

The other day I was watching a robin grabbing worms from a patch I had just weeded when I noticed some silver tracery on a nearby bramble leaf. I looked closer and saw there were lots of squiggles and hieroglyphs on many of the nearby leaves. 

Leaf miner traceries on bramble leaf

They were intriguing and I have discovered that they are signs left by the larvae of leaf miners which can be a number of varieties of moths, beetles, sawflies and flies. 

More leaf miner patterns

These tiny creatures live between the inner and outer layers of the leaves as tiny caterpillars (moths) or maggots (everything else) and munch through the leafy chlorophyl from inside out.  There seem to be leaf miners specialising in many particular plants including apples and hellebores. Luckily they have not yet attacked anything here except the brambles so I'm happy to enjoy the patterns they make and to let their natural enemies - lacewings, mealy bugs and parasitoid wasps keep them under control. 

                    

               Row of tiny leaf miners on a leaf               Parasitoid wasp going for a leaf mining maggot

Another mystery has been the tearing out and scattering around of almost every primrose flower ( and I have many). I suspected the squirrels at first because I've seen them eating crocuses, but then I caught a sparrow in fragrante delicto and I'm told they do this because the yellow pigment in the flowers helps to brighten their own yellowish breast colour so they can attract a mate more easily. Well -  really?

                   

                        Clump of primroses before and after - all those poor little flower heads

I was given the splendid present of a trail camera for Christmas and have just downloaded the first pictures. I will include trailcam  pictures from time to time to show who visits the garden when I'm not around. They are better quality than my phone, I have to say. For a start here's the fox prowling near the bird bath.