Growing Moths

The showery weather from the night before gave the reserve a muggy air. The reserve was a fairly quiet place today, the heavy showers seemed to keep folk at bay. On the positive side the lack of distractions enabled us to get a few jobs done in the field centre such as office paperwork catch up, plus a few repairs. Even the White Ermine moth caterpillars got their weekly clean out.

The caterpillars are growing at a fair rate.  They pass through a number of instars or growth moults, before pupating.  Over night we were suprised to see how some of them have changed, from the small brown caterpillar at the top of the picture to the larger hairy version below!  They are almost unrecognisable as the same thing!  The caterpillars are still very active and are a lot of fun to watch.

This Ringlet butterfly is a common sight on the reserve at present.

In not such large numbers are Common Blue butterflies.  This one was on the wetland, feeding from Selfheal.