Puss in willows

What on earth is this staring at us?

Ah, it's trying to merge into its surrounding s now

It's starting to move again - look at the horns on that!
This Puss Moth caterpillar caused quite a stir when I found it on a sallow bush at Dungeness back in the summer. Some species look better when not an imago and this is one of them. When I first saw it I showed my ignorance of the larvae of the UK by assuming it must be a hawk-moth. I suppose there are quite a few people out there who think that they know their moths as adults but who would struggle to identify them as larvae, chrysalis or eggs - I'm one of them.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Slowly going blind by moss

Image
I have been spending far too long at the computer today, slowly working my way through the photos that I took yesterday on my moss/liverwort/lichen foray. My eyes and head do ache... Together with field guides, internet sites and a large dollop of faith, I have been trying to piece together what, exactly, is what. Needless to say, these organisms are not easy. There are thousands of the bloody things, many are similar, many need the deft eye of an expert and many need to be left well alone. I was quite pleased to identify a minimum of 15 species, with several pending and quite a few more destined to remain in a folder marked 'unknown'. I am seriously thinking about going on an organised bryological outing to get a bit of help. I enjoyed yesterday immensly - when you look at things from a different perspective it is astonishing just what there is to be seen. Moss was green and slimy to me not long ago. It is a thing of beauty in reality. I may well bore you with several images i...
Read more

Listing to one side

There will be a number of birding listers who are currently salivating with the expectation of New Years Day lifers. You see, they will be guaranteed British ticks on that date, regardless of whether they go out birding or not. Because it is then that the British Ornithologists' Union (BOU) adopts the International Ornithological Congress (IOC) World bird list - and with that comes a handful of taxonomical splits that are not currently recognised here in Britain. Isabelline (Lanius isabellinus) and Red-tailed Shrikes  (L phoenicuruides) are to be considered separate species, as will Taiga Bean (Anser fablis) and Tundra Bean Goose (A rossicus) . Fea's Petrel (Pterodroma feae) loses its umbilical chord to Desertas Petrel (P deserta) and Thayer's Gull (Larus thayeri) is cut adrift from Iceland Gull (L glaucoides) . Want more? Well here you go then - Two-barred Warbler will no longer be lumped with Greenish; Eastern Yellow Wagtail and Stejneger's Stonechat will no...
Read more

"I'm going to pick up my binoculars and walk out the front door - I may be some time"

Image
I tweeted that at 09.00hrs, a few hours after coming to terms with the fact that this country had decided to vote to leave the EU. I can honestly say that I have never been so angry, confused and felt so impotent over a political decision. It was a referendum that did not need to happen, but did so because of petty party political infighting. I took myself off to Denbigh's Hillside, close to Dorking, to clear my head. I sat down and started to put all of what had happened into some sort of order. The bare facts are that 51.9% of those who voted opted to Leave, and 48.1% opted to Remain. For such a far reaching decision, it seems almost too narrow a margin to allow any progress to continue. This isn't just a case of the UK coming out of the EU. It has opened up massive chasms between the generations; a deeper fracturing of a fragile United Kingdom; a widening class divide; Northern Ireland and Gibraltar now facing up to being on closed borders; enormous worry for UK passp...
Read more