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 a mine on Salix repens var. argentea Mines often start on the midrib as here. They generally then approach the edge of the leaf, follow it, and expand into a blotch.

Data: 02.viii.2022, Dungeness, Kent, VC15

Image:© Will Langdon