The combination of ferruginous-orange head, white collar and eyecaps, and white tornal spot, is distinctive, but the species is much more frequently recorded in the larval stage due to possible confurion of adult with other Stigmella species. The larva mines the leaves of Buckthorn.

Adult Leafmine

Where Buckthorn occurs.

Peak time is around June.

The larval foodplant is Buckthorn. Long straight slender gallery, turning into a series of 'S' turns. Frass and larva match colour of leaf and tenanted mines can be hard to find.

In the Butterfly Conservation's Microlepidoptera Report 2011 this species was classified as local.

Increasingly well recorded in Leicestershire and Rutland in recent years, particularly from the leafmines on Buckthorn.

http://www.leafmines.co.uk/html/Lepidoptera/S.catharticella.htm

https://bladmineerders.nl/parasites/animalia/arthropoda/insecta/lepidoptera/monotrysia/nepticuloidea/nepticulidae/stigmella/stigmella-catharticella/