Caterpillar Diaries (Part 11)

The last one to pupate!

In the last two weeks, my caterpillars have been slowly building their cocoons. One by one, day after day, their numbers have been dwindling. The amount of food going in and the frass that I have to clear out has been less of a chore, but their slow, sluggish behaviour has been causing me some concern. Their not as hungry as they once were and prefer climbing and wandering around the box and everything within it. Sadly, 3 of the 25 caterpillars have died, perhaps being unable to locate the limited amount of leaves I put in there, which is getting harder and harder to keep fresh every day. Now, only one remains and I'm glad to say that it has decided to join the others by pupating as well.

Building the foundation

As it is the last one, I've been watching it start building its cocoon. It was originally building it on the paper towel and a leaf instead of the egg cartons. So I've carefully removed the leaf and reduced the size of the towel and placed it inside one of the cartons where its more convenient for me. Once it starts producing silk, it won't stop until it is fully covered, repairing any damage I've made from moving it without any problem. The silk is pretty strong and slightly tricky to pull things off that's attached to it and it hardens very quickly. The caterpillar first lays down the foundations, flexing its body to fix the strands of silk to one point to another that's behind it with the caterpillar remaining in the centre of it all.

Weaving silk into a messy 'spider's web'

As soon as the foundations are attached, it binds more and more of the silk over it, creating what's like a messy spider's web. It then simply weaves this 'web' with more silk, slowly plugging up the gaps until you can't see the caterpillar anymore. It's a long process and will take as much as half a day to complete, so I expect this individual will have finished by the time I wake up tomorrow. The silk will also react to the air and will change colour to brown by that point too.

Plugging up the gaps

Slowly vanishing behind a sheet of silk

By morning it will be complete

With no more caterpillars to look after, I am free from collecting food for them and cleaning up their poo. You just don't know how relieved I am about that. No longer will I have to keep moving them to empty the massive pile of frass they leave behind or get my hands scratched to bits by bramble thorns! I'm free!! But not quite. Now that they are cocoons, all I have to do is cut up the sections of egg box that they are on and store them into a smaller box. Then all I need to do is wait until they emerge next spring. There is a slim chance that they could emerge early in late August and early September, but hopefully that won't happen.

June 27th Strumpshaw Fen

Norfolk Hawker

A great day for butterflies (as well as other insects, too) at Strumpshaw this morning. With the sun out from behind the clouds and bathing everything in warm sunlight, it brought out the insects in force. One corner of the woodland trail, especially, was like a bustling city for insects. The brambles in this location were in bloom and was attracting hundreds of pollinators, from bees to hoverflies. Dragonflies hovered and soared over them like living mini helicopters patrolling this floral metropolis of the invertebrate world. But it were the flamboyant, flashy commuters, the butterflies, that many people were hoping to see and photograph.

Common Darter

Azure Damselfly



Large Skipper

Wasp chewing the Fen Hide

Wild Raspberry

White Admiral

Though the swallowtails were still on the wing (I had at least 3 or 4 sightings today), they are approaching the end of their season. Now, the attention has turned to the brambles and to two other species. The white admirals, with their black and white upper wings and a much colourful under side, are an annual favourite at this time of year amongst visitors are gliding down from the canopy to gorge themselves on the nectar the bramble flowers have on offer. This year, just like last year, they have a newcomer stealing the limelight as a colony of silver-washed fritillaries have re-established themselves after a long absence from the reserve. The fritillaries are much bigger than the admirals and are a bright dazzling orange with a silvery sheen. The males can be recognised with their hooked forewings, while the females are like commas with rounded wings.

While the white admirals were more obliging to photograph, the silver-washed fritillaries turned out to be uninterested in posing for me. And while the admirals were more abundant and frequent, I only managed to have one sighting of one fritillary swooping passed the brambles during a lengthy spell of waiting around for it to show up. So I failed to get a photo of one this time, but at least I've finally seen one at Strumpshaw after failing to see one last year. I shall have to try again next week.

Mute Swans with seven cygnets

As for birdlife, today wasn't exactly bursting with activity on their part. It was typically quiet for this time of year. Though, I did see the odd flash of a kingfisher here and there, a few food passes from marsh harriers to their ever hungry fledglings, several grey herons, swallows, house martins and swifts and a family of mute swans with seven cygnets, it was nothing compared to the hive of activity of the invertebrate life that's outnumbering the birds right now. Today truly belongs to the insects.

Grey Heron

Grey Heron with Mute Swan

Grey Heron with Coot

June 22nd Mousehold Heath

A chilly moth night at Mousehold Heath

Last night was yet another moth evening at Mousehold Heath. Despite the event starting at 10pm, there was a reasonably good turn up for it. And though it was pretty chilly as the night went on, we still manage to catch a few moths in the trap, not as many as we hoped for, but nonetheless enough to show the family that had turned up for this late night trapping session. A handful of these moths were apparently new to the site, too, which made waiting around outside in the cold instead of being in bed well worth it. Here's what we caught...




Purple Clay

Willow Beauty




Heart and Dart

Single-dotted Wave

Buff Ermine

Marbled Brown

Caterpillar Diaries (Part 10)

One of my caterpillars beginning to pupate!

While I've been away in London, I gave my caterpillars to my friend, David to look after. When I gave them to him on Saturday, after showing him the ropes, they were still quite lively. However, as soon as I left them round his, apparently they started acting 'odd'. I told him that they were going through a 5th skin shed. It never happened though, as David reported that he never found any old shrivelled up skin anywhere as the days past by. They weren't eating much and were a lot less active than before. But then he woke up on Tuesday morning to find a brown 'slug' at the bottom of the box. This was a cocoon. My caterpillars are beginning to pupate!

A completed cocoon!

Like a parent missing out on a child's first steps, I felt disappointed to have missed this landmark occasion in my caterpillars lives and guilty to have left them with David at this delicate stage, as if throwing him off the deep end in the world of caterpillar care. I had to instruct him on the phone of what to do, but he seemed to have done a good job when I picked them up when I returned home last night. The pot and the bramble branches are now replaced with egg cartons for them to pupate in with some leaves placed at the top for those still fattening up in preparation. Sadly, one has died for reasons unknown, but there are still plenty that have yet to pupate. A few of them has found themselves a crevice in the cartons to weave a brown sheet of silk over themselves. It seems to take them several hours to complete building the cocoon to the point where you cannot see them inside. Now all I can do is wait and let them metamorphose into adult moths.

My London Adventure (Part 3)

Fallow Deer at Richmond Park

My final day in London was meant to be a day of visiting the Natural History Museum and other attractions based in central London. However, Mum's leg was playing up and she was finding it difficult to walk even to the nearest underground station. So, we ended up driving around Richmond Park instead. It proved to be a great substitute location. This national nature reserve seemed like the wildest place in the capital with its many acres of grassland and ancient woodland. It felt like a country park than a place that's part of this very busy city. It is also a place famous for it's herds of fallow and red deer that are extremely use to people. At times it was like a safari park as the deer grazed by the roadside. While we were here, I also went in search for stag beetles that supposedly inhabit the many fallen dead wood that the staff here leave to rot to encourage the beetles thrive, but I had no such luck. I think it was because it is now pretty late in the year for them. My stag beetle hunt goes on for another year, I guess.

Red Deer

Grassland and ancient woodland

London's cityscape

Jackdaw

Grey Squirrel

Bumblebee and Foxglove



Large Skipper

No Stag Beetles, but I did find this interesting bee on the dead wood

Peregrine that I found on a TV aerial atop of neighbouring tower block to our hotel