Insect activity

I fear this may be the last such insect report of the year, which disheartens me greatly. The bees are preparing for winter, the ladybirds are hiding all over the bally place, and the sight of the butterflies is becoming a rare treat! The end is nigh.

The Commas have had a good year!

No sooner than I’d taken a few bites from this here windfall pear, a hornet landed wanting in on the action too! What a hornet wants, a hornet gets. They’re wonderfully terrifying beasts, and heroes hide in ditches when they fly by!

Butterflies like fruit too! Here’s a Red Admiral in the Orchard at Reaseheath College

Finally, this is the first Painted Lady I have seen in action this year! These migrants fly here like the Hummingbird hawk-moths from warm places such as North Africa

The Red Admirals have been abundant this year, on this day there were seven feeding! Note the glass panel in the background, as the front has been put back on the Plant House

Large Yellow Underwing moth

Lesser Marsh grasshopper

No open flower? No problem!

Vapourer Moth

This delightfully peculiar chap was discovered quite contentedly chomping its way through Rosa ‘Souvenir du Docteur Jamain’, a beautiful variety favoured by that heroic old soak Vita SVW (I have heard some truly heart-warming tales of her being pushed back to the castle in a wheelbarrow, three sheets to the wind). Recently some of the old varieties of Rosa we have on the Rose Walk have been propagated, so I re-homed ‘The Vapourer’ (fantastic name!) here amongst the quieter surroundings of the propagation areas. This moth caterpillar is listed as a pest of roses in some quarters, but it is not a fussy eater and will feed on many species of deciduous trees and shrubs. Personally I consider the possibility of attracting these caterpillars to the garden a reason to plant more roses!

Check out those horns!

This is the silken pupa case, somewhat different from the hanging structures of our butterfly friends

I apologise profusely for the absolute dearth of postings lately! I have been away at college since last week, somewhat swamped by assignments and the large volume of work that has been flung at us due to this being the beginning of our final year! In a moment of absolute genius, I packed my laptop but not the power cord so internet access has been sparse. Normal service will resume shortly.