Caterpillars

Thursday, August 21st 2014

Butterflies are brightly coloured and most can be identified from reference books. Moths are a little more difficult but with perseverance they can be identified. Caterpillars come in all shapes, sizes, with and without fur and hair, sticky up tails and bright colours. Unfortunatley trying to identify some of them is impossible!

One that we can identify, is this brightly coloured, hairy and well photographed little fella - it is Grey Dagger Moth. (We call it Grey Dags.) It remained on its leaf over a long period of time so everyone who wanted to, could take a photograph. We noticed the silk thread around it and wondered if it was going to pupate or was it for protection. We will see if it is still in the same place over the weekend.

Grey Dagger Moth caterpillar

The next caterpillar was found on a Teasel leaf. Yellow splodges, black splodges and grey bits - easy to find in the reference book. It remains a yellow, black and grey caterpillar!

Yellow and grey caterpillar

Thanks to Christine for these photographs.

After days of uncertainty and every weather forecast known on the internet examined closely, the bird ringers decided that the weather was not going to be too bad for their second trip to Cape Wrath to ring Storm Petrels. They set off tonight. Our best wishes go with them and we hope that they have a successful visit. Signals for mobiles and the internet are not brilliant but we hope to hear of their activities over the weekend.

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Monday 18th March 2024 |

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