First brimstone sighting of the year for me today. Always a welcome sight, and seen every year, but usually just one at any one time. No orange tips seen here yet.
I have had a good few of these in my garden over the last couple of days.
Please can somebody help to identify them. They seem to have wings under the shield, but are not flying around, they sit at one place for a long time and seem very slow to move.
What are they, and are they a pest? I try not to kill any insects (except for the lily beetle), but I would like to know if I need to keep an eye on them. Thank you 🙏
Thank you @Jellyfire I think you might be right, it matches exactly the bugs I saw.
It looks like they are a pest and can do quite a lot of damage to trees, and they are not indigenous species, so the local birds don’t eat them. Maybe I should review my no-kill policy in their case 🤔🤔🤔
Alder leaf beetles are classified as nationally rare and recovering from presumed local extinction in the UK. I'm not aware of them being known as a pest but they are indigenous in theory. There are similar species of leaf beetle though and some can be more damaging than others. https://www.naturespot.org.uk/family/chrysomelidae
If you can keep your head, while those around you are losing theirs, you may not have grasped the seriousness of the situation.
Yep I don’t think they are anything to worry about, an infestation could maybe do a lot of cosmetic damage to a tree but nothing it couldn’t brush off I wouldn’t have though
Thank you @wild edges and @Jellyfire, I leave them in peace then. Although in my garden they don’t seem to be rare - this is the first year I spotted them and I see at least a few every day. We don’t have any alder trees nearby, but an oak and a birch in the neighbours’ gardens.
Alder leaf beetles are classified as nationally rare and recovering from presumed local extinction in the UK. I'm not aware of them being known as a pest but they are indigenous in theory. There are similar species of leaf beetle though and some can be more damaging than others. https://www.naturespot.org.uk/family/chrysomelidae
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No orange tips seen here yet.
Thanks for the interesting link, @wild edges .