Likely Gypsy Moth egg-batch

This afternoon I happened to notice an egg-batch about 4ft up a shaded east-facing wall of our house which was absolutely covered in several hundred freshly-emerged blackish larvae.  At first glance Vapourer seemed the likeliest but, on carefully scraping more than half of the larvae away into a pot in order to see what they'd emerged from, it became clear that these were something else.  The eggs were actually contained within a yellowish spongy mass of hairs (unlike those of Vapourer which are laid on the outside of the wingless female's cocoon).  They would appear to be those of Gypsy Moth, the males of which have been appearing with ever-increasing regularity in the garden trap since 2017 (35 seen last year), but as yet there has been no sign of a female.  The images below show the egg-batch after more than half of the larvae had been removed, plus the best shot I could manage of a single larva about 3mm in length.

Likely Gypsy Moth egg-batch, Westcott 4th May

Single larva, Westcott 4th May

I'll try rearing them on hawthorn, which is the tree that shades the wall on which they were found, and hopefully as (or if!) they grow their identity will become more obvious.

Dave Wilton Westcott, Bucks