Caterpillar at Alice Holt. After a good few hours searching, and quite a few false prophets, I finally tracked down a Purple Emperor caterpillar at Alice Holt Forest. It was nicely curled up against a scar but looked like it was eager to move even in these low temperatures. I found it by looking for the dangling Sallow leaves that it had carefully silked onto the spray to stop it loosing its home before it was ready to hibernate for the winter. Their silk must be pretty strong stuff to have survived storm Bert! Let’s see if it survives - they are very susceptible to predators at this time, particularly hungry birds. [Posted by Mark Tutton]
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| Dangling leaves Photo © Mark Tutton | Waiting for spring Photo © Mark Tutton |