Back in August last year I went to visit an old friend who lives in Manchester and we ended up talking about a childhood enthusiasm that I had for keeping caterpillars. When I came down for breakfast the next morning, there was a jam jar on the kitchen table with a hairy black caterpillar in it, which my friend had found in her garden that morning and captured for me. So I put some soil, leaves and twigs in the jar to make him more comfortable and then took him home on the train with me.
Just a couple of days later the caterpillar turned into a chrysalis and burried himself under the soil. Then for months the jam jar just sat on top of the mantelpiece in the sitting room with nothing happening. So it was exciting to wake up this morning and see a beautiful moth had hatched from the chrysalis and climbed onto the wall of the jar.
Back in August I had tried to identifiy the caterpillar. Knowing that hairy caterpillars are usually moths I used the UK Moths website and had thought that it must be a Clouded Buff. However it was obvious from first glance this morning that I must have got it wrong, as the Clouded Buff has red and orange colours and this moth was white with dalmation-like black spots.
Going back to the UK Moths website I was able to identify him as a White Ermine (Spilosoma Lubricipeda) which is apparently widely distributed and fairly common in much of Britiain. But according to the website he shouldn’t have hatched until May or June, so I’m not sure how well he’s going to get on in cold wet February.
As I got him out of the jar this morning and he fell out upside down; I noticed that he has an amazing bright yellow back.
Many people see them as just a pest, but it was hard to feel that when I woke up this morning to see this lovely creature curled up asleep in the corner of the back garden. He looked very peaceful and in good condition and helpfully looked up at just the right point when I opened the window to take a picture of him. Trying to get a close up was more tricky; although I stalked him quite successfully - getting to within about 5m – as soon as he heard the camera he looked up and saw me then scarpered pretty quick.
At 4.20pm this afternoon there was a flurry of excitement at Tufnell Park when several fire engines, police vans and ambulances pulled up outside the tube station. A few moments later a Virgin air ambulance began circling overhead at very low altitude. Then, much to the surprise of the crowd that had formed around the edge of the police tape, the helicopter landed right in the middle of the junction outside Tufnell Park tube. According Transport for London website the incident was caused by a person under a train.
Well, it’s still not quite gardening weather but the scenes on Hampstead Heath were very picturesque. And at least a bit of sledging helps you build up a good appetite…
Squirrel eating a mushroom in Regent's Park
Having bought some bird seed the other day I decided to hang it from the apple tree at the end of the garden. So I took some string and tied it around a branch of the tree at one end and the around the hook of the bag at the other. It lasted less than an hour before the squirrels identified it and had gnawed through the plastic netting scattering all the nuts and seeds on the ground.
In my second attempt I decided to use thin green garden wire to hang the bag from and this time hang it quite a bit lower. I watched the squirrels from the kitchen window as they identified that their food store had been replenished. This time it wasn’t so easy for them to access, although I enjoyed several amusing minutes watching them try. First trying to hang upside down holding on to the branch above with their back claws, then looking up from the ground and finally attempting to reach it from the branch of the tree. Satisfied that I had out-smarted them I left them to it.
So I was surprised when I looked out of the window the next day to see that the whole bag was missing. Closer inspection revealed that a squirrel had managed to hoist the entire bag up and over the branch that it was hanging from allowing them once again to consume all the nuts inside. Pretty impressive given that the nuts must weight close to the body weight of a squirrel.
In my third attempt I’m pleased so say that I have been more successful and I think finally beaten the squirrels. This time I used much thicker, less pliable wire (probably 6 mm across) and hung the bag on an even longer length of wire so further down from the branch. I would recommend this as a quick, easy and cheap solution if you want to prevent squirrels from eating all the nuts that you’ve intended to feed birds with. I think it’s also much more attractive than the big cage solutions that you can buy and also has the advantage that if you want to try to photograph birds on the feeder you don’t have this ugly metal contraption in the way.
Since it’s still too cold to really start any work in the garden yet we went for a walk on Hampstead Heath instead. At about 3.30pm the sun was already sinking into the horizon casting a soft pink light across London.
