Spectacular year for oak leaf cherry galls

 I don't think I can recall a year when oaks hereabouts have hosted so many different kinds of galls, in such abundance. These oak leaf cherry galls, caused by the cynipid wasp Cynips quercus-folii, are growing on an oak near Blaids wood, just south of the city of Durham.

There will be a single gall wasp larva inside each, which will pupate and then emerge in late winter as a mature wasp, after the gall has spent the winter in the leaf litter.

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Sharing a leaf with a severe infestation of silk-button galls caused by Neuroterus numismalis, and a single pea gall caused by Cynips divisa

Sharing a leaf with spangle galls caused by Neuroterus quercus-baccarum