Thank you Goldie. There seems to have been an explosion of Meadow Brown around here recently and everywhere I walk I am flushing them from the grass.
I think an update on the garden larva is well overdue. You will recall that because the eggs had been laid there I was determined not to interfere and just monitor their wild lives - none of my usual 'saving and rescuing'. I had found 9 Orange Tip eggs on both Cuckoo Plant and Garlic Mustard. For some reason the eggs and tiny larva disappeared from the cuckoo plant first. The ones on the garlic mustard lasted longer but did not reach final instar. I had high hopes for the final 2 which seemed to be progressing well but there is a lot of baby birds around at the moment ...........So, out of 9 not a single one made it.
The 11 Brimstone eggs were laid in 3 batches and in the early stages more than half were predated. As they grew they seemed less susceptible to predation which was a surprise as they couldn't have been more obvious:
Of the 5 which reached final instar, 4 wandered off the plant to pupate. I tried really hard to track them at this stage to see where they pupated but found it impossible. Only one remained on the plant and I was very pleased when I saw him begin to pupate:
However, as the days wore on and there was no change I began to think that he was not going to survive this stage. Happily I was wrong and this was him yesterday:
Now, altho' not exactly a garden larva, do you remember the little larva that spent 2 days in the fridge having come in on a vegetable delivery (broccoli)? I thought it might have been a Small White but I couldn't get it to eat. Thinking there was a possibility it was a GVW and they both eat garlic mustard I offered some of that - just not interested. Because I was curious about its ID I put it in a cage where it promptly pupated on the netting making photos impossible
With a bit of luck, before very long I shall find out what it is.
The Pine Hawk moth pupa found in the rabbit run last Autumn is still alive and kicking (well, wriggling) so I am hopeful it won't be long before I get to see it.
Having had the advantage of being able to monitor the development from eggs of these 2 species in a wild situation has been an eye opener. I had read that for various reasons (predation, disease etc) only a very small percentage make it through to adulthood in the wild but actually seeing it happen makes it very real and is obviously the reason so many eggs are laid.
so here is a brief summary of the lead into the main event:
- they always have the look of an alien baddy to mine mind 
keep the shots coming 
