Yet more caterpillars...

Yesterday evening's dog-walk produced another mined leaf on young birch at the entrance to the Westcott Venture Park and this time the culprit proved to be Eriocrania cicatricella with two larvae present in the mine.  This species doesn't eat the internal parts of the leaf quite so comprehensively as the other Eriocranias so the mine appears cloudier and the larvae aren't quite so easy to spot, but their shapes are visible in the lower half of the image below.

Eriocrania cicatricella, Westcott 4th May

During the daytime yesterday I found one of our prettiest moth larvae, a fully-grown Lackey caterpillar feeding on Blackthorn in the garden.  It was a little odd that it should just have been the one individual because the eggs are laid in batches and the larvae live communally in a nest for their first few instars, meaning that I must have missed all that! 

Lackey caterpillar, Westcott 4th May

Finally, while checking the area around the MV trap at about 10pm last night I noticed a fully-grown Old Lady caterpillar feeding away on a Portuguese Laurel Prunus lusitanica which is growing up against our boundary fence.  The new caterpillar field guide states that after hibernation they feed on a wide range of native woody plants, "including Blackthorn, birches, elms, Hawthorn, Common Ivy, spindles and willows" - all of which we have in the garden.  This begs the question as to why it should prefer to feed on a foreign shrub, albeit a distant relative of Blackthorn, but also one whose leaves contain cyanide!

Old Lady caterpillar, Westcott 4th May (by torchlight)

Dave Wilton
Westcott, Bucks