Sometimes wildlife entertains you; sometimes it thrills you; sometimes it just makes you chuckle.
Such was my reaction on seeing this little fella walking across the path while visiting RSPB Pulborough Brooks yesterday. One can see why evolution equipped him (or her) with long bristles all over, rendering him somewhat unpalatable to any hungry bird or mouse (or a painful mistake). But why was it then necessary to give him a sunshine-yellow mohican on his back, a comedy red tail, and colour him lime-green? It must be one of Mother Nature's little jokes.
And even though I didn't find him in a garden, I felt he was worth sharing because this is the caterpillar of the Pale Tussock, which is a relatively widespread moth of even towns and cities.
The adults turn up quite regularly in the trap in my little suburban garden. They are quite plain, although they do sport cute fluffy leg warmers. They fly in early summer, and the females lay their eggs on all sorts of deciduous trees.
The caterpillar grows slowly, and then just about now in October heads off to pupate among some fallen leaves, another of the great wildlife gardening excuses for not raking or vacuum-cleaning them up. As the caterpillars wobble along, they bend and reveal black gaps in between each lime segment, like you can see here.
Now I have never seen the caterpillar in my garden (much as I'd like to) but there's no reason why you shouldn't stumble across this little attention seeker in yours (although, sorry, it is again not a Scottish moth, yet).
So good luck, and even if this punk rocker doesn't come swaggering your way, I hope something comes along in your garden to make you chuckle this weekend. And if it does, we want to hear about it!
If you want to drop by my RSPB wildlife gardening blog, it is updated every Friday, and I'd love to see you there - www.rspb.org.uk/community/blogs/hfw
Saw one of these last week here at the Lodge reserve. I've been meaning to look it up to find out what it was...so thanks!
Richard
For more information and to find your nearest Feed the Birds Day events, visit www.rspb.org.uk/feedthebirds
A 'large and fantastic wildlife area', eh Jean? I'm liking the sound of that. Would you like to tell us more? I'd be delighted to do a blog entry about it!
Your posting, Jef, makes me realise that I've never seen an emergence all the way through. Something to rectify ASAP, methinks!
A couple of weeks ago as we were leaving school (Inverteign Community Nursery and Prmary School/Teignmouth in Devon) after another morning spent restoring our large and fantastic wildlife area we stopped to watch a pale tussock moth caterpillar moving along the path-didn't recognise the species but soon managed to identify it with help from the internet!
That is so cute. I get so few caterpillars in my garden and hope that now having a lawn and a meadow area (in progress) the chances of seeing some will increase.
One year, I think early spring, I accidently swept a chrysalis (or cocoon?) from under my step. I put it in a margarine tub with various vegetation and eagerly waited for it to pupate. Once it seemed to be emerging I checked on it every hour or so as I have never seen a moth or butterfly emerge from this state. Typically I missed it! Looked in and the chrysalis was empty. I looked all over for the insect and eventually noticed it just above the margarine tub. I was worried my cats would get it so gently put it outside in the sunshine. It was a brown coloured moth but I forgot to photograph it or try to identify it, what an idiot!
Kind regards Jane.