Was it a micro moth? a gall? an egg?
As Halloween approaches, I always find myself noticing the stranger side of nature. Autumn may signal the end of the insect season, but if you look closely enough, there are still plenty of surprises waiting among the fading leaves.
This is the story of one such surprise, from many many years ago.
The days are drawing shorter and the nights colder, the season for most insects has already passed and the number of species of hoverflies spotted is reducing quickly in number. There are still a few on the flowering Ivy and Michaelmas daisies, so on a sunny day both can be full of pollinators.
At this time of year, I spend less time watching flowers and more time inspecting leaves. Autumn can reveal all sorts of hidden treasures, from strange plant galls to the winding tunnels of leaf miners hidden inside a leaf.
So, it was a mild autumn afternoon, I spotted what looked like nothing more than a tiny speck of dirt, on a leaf. It was so small I almost ignored it. My first thoughts were it was going to be a micro moth, a gall, or an egg - it turned out to be none of them.
