Well here goes, for better or worse, another year of moths. The old thread is here https://community.rspb.org.uk/wildlife/f/all-creatures/196070/mostly-moths-2018/1221500#1221500
To start us off a couple of silly ones that came to greet the first trap of the year on the night of the 1st to 2nd january. It was around 6-7°C all night & frosts ever since so I gave it a go.
A Double-striped Pug
& same one closed
& White Speck
Nothing earth-shattering, but a start!
Best wishes
Hazel in Southwest France
Update on my Death's-head HM larvae ... growing rapidly & munching their merry way through all my carefully nurtured privet!!
Yesterday
They don't stay clean for long & always bare twigs in morning ... getting moved is quite a mission
Today's move
Actually co-erce them into moving from dirty towel by strategically placing fresh privet nearby then easy to pick up twig & place in cleaned out pot
Clean & fed once more ... for another half a day!!
Hope they are going to pupate soon!!
2013 photos & vids here
eff37 on Flickr
Straight out of bed this morning into garden cutting privet sprigs in my PJ's!!! Some footage of how fast they eat ...
Moved them to prepared pupation pot today ... 3 inches of orchid compost topped with finely shredded newspaper then laid sheet of kitchen towel on top & transferred the monsters attached to their sprigs of privet ... they are able to get down the sides & bury themselves at will ... mustn't disturb for at least a fortnight after last one gone down, takes them that long to transform!
A Jersey Tiger that was flitting about in the garden for a few minutes this afternoon, it wouldn't keep still long enough to get a decent, full on shot! First time I've seen one and didn't realise how much bigger than the Garden Tiger it was
Pic enhanced
No-one pupated yet!!
Four were quite easy to move onto fresh leaves
But the last one took a while to get the hang of moving ...