Spring Gall week 2023 comes a week or so too early for central England. This year Spring has come slowly, and in fits and starts, with the result that leaf bud burst is only just underway for most trees.
Usually the first new galls of Spring are eriophyid galls on newly unfurled leaves, with Acer, Salix and Crataegus often galling as tge leaves open (I believe the mites overwinter within the bud scales, so can move in immediately). Cecid gall causers tend to be a bit later: early ones are Semudobia sp. Ovipositing into female Betula catkins, and Dasineura tiliae, but neither host is ready yet. Oak Apples should be forming now, but I have only one location close by where I've seen them. Other cynpids on Quercus must await the catkins.
All of this means my initial hunt relied on old galls, a few rusts, and some eriophyid big buds, leaving only about 3 currently tenanted galls out my first day's haul of 17 galls:
In terms of likely suspects for the remainder of the week, I only have a handful of obvious targets: Marble Gall, two Semufobia, Hollyhock Rust. If leaf burst continues I might find Aceria macrochela, A. myriadum., and Phyllocoptes goniothorax (for some reason both the latter two are quite scarce close to me). A couple of fungal galls are also possible : a smut on Winter Aconite leaves, and both a smut and a rust on Lesser Celandine. The gall I've failed to find this year, which for some reason is a late Winter one locally, is Dasineura violae. All-in-all I don't expect to get to 30 galls in the week. For comparison in early May 2014 I led a gall walk at Attenbourough NR where we found 50 galls in a couple of hours (more eyes does make a big difference).
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