Two eyes and an unexpected reply...

 

As Julie Andrews once warbled: Let's start at the very beginning. A very good place to start. Assuming that is, you have not already guessed what this is from the photograph? 

I was on one of my many trips around local woodland the other day, just looking out for bugs and insects, when I spotted something on a birch leaf...

I thought I might have some idea of what this could be, but I was intrigued and so decided to try and investigate further. I took the leaf home with me and once in my studio, very carefully eased off the top layer, to reveal a pupa/chrysalis inside. It seemed very pale to me, and my guess was that it had only recently formed?

I took a few more images once I had released it from the cocoon so that I could get a clear view. I wouldn't normally recommend doing this, but I was most careful not to injure or upset the pupa in any way, and having done it once before, knew if I was diligent and conscientious,  it would come to no harm.

If you study the bottom one of these photos, there is a big clue as to the identity of what would eventually emerge from the pupa. Don't see it? Okay then, let's divert our attentions to something else for a moment or two, and then I'll explain.

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You might recall how in my last update I mentioned I had sent an email to Patrick Barkham at The Guardian Newspaper, after reading an article he wrote in which he was 'very unkind' let's say, about a Tachinid fly. Well surprise, surprise, I recieved a reply from him. Here it is...

Hello John,

Thank you for your email and I agree with you. I wrote that piece 11 years ago when I was younger and more foolish and had not yet given deep thought to various environmental crises and our relationship with species.

 I would definitely not use such language today!

V best,

Patrick.

Hoorah! The man has a conscience after all. I wrote back thanking him for his honesty. I also pointed out how even things you wrote 11 years ago can come back and bite you in the bum! 

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So where were we? Oh yes, the clue. Here, I have highlighted it in the next photo...

It was this image that confirmed, 99% anyway, that my suspicions were correct.

Have you got it now? Try this then...

Oh come on - I can't give you any more clues without telling you what it is! Okay then, I'll reveal all; here's the full monty.

 Erm, no actually. In true full monty style, I'll tease you just a little before the big reveal. How about a couple of recent garden finds; a lovely, minute, Misumena vatia Crab spiderling first...

Followed swiftly by a Brimstone butterfly that was visiting the buddleia...

Oh and, another spiderling that I found in the same woods as the pupa...

Yes: a beautifully pristine, male Vapourer moth. 

That's a wrap I think: or at the very least, something that rhymes with it! Time for my meditation...

Something a little different...

I thought I'd try and ring the changes and make this update a little different and so I am going to include a couple of things that I haven't tried before. Firstly though, I have no fresh news on the Death's-head Hawkmoths yet. I did however mean to include a close-up shot of their amazing clawed feet.

Hmmm...sorry, but this is how my mind works, just by writing the word 'feet' has reminded me of a recent conversation about the bible saying that insects have four feet? Hang on...I'll see if I can find a reference to the actual wording?

Here you are:

Lev. 11:20-3 All fowls that creep, going upon all four, shall be an abomination unto you. Yet these may ye eat of every flying creeping thing that goeth upon all four, which have legs above their feet, to leap withal upon the earth; even these of them ye may eat; the locust after his kind, and the bald locust after his kind, and the beetle after his kind, and the grasshopper after his kind. But all other flying creeping things, which have four feet, shall be an abomination unto you.

What do we all think about this? It's a rhetorical question by the way and not supposed to elicit a response, merely to ask you to have a think about it. Watch out for the fowl creeping about on all fours too.

Here's the photograph then...

Whilst ambling around one of my favourite haunts, Comfort's Wood recently.....Ooops! Here I go again, I have a new blog dedicated to these woods now and will include a link at the end of this post for anyone that might be interested. Erm...oh yes, Walking around the woods I saw lots of Common Darter dragonflies and it seemed a good idea (at the time) to have a go at catching one taking flight in slow-motion. I have a little Pentax camera that films in high speed to allow playback in slo-mo and this is the result of my first attempt...

You will need to view the blog online rather than the emailed version that doesn't show videos. You might also like to turn your sound on as this clip has a little toon added. But I understand that some of you don't like music behind the videos.

                       



Here's another using the same camera, of a honey bee in the garden-again slow motion with music...

Apologies for the annoying ads on this clip-you can delete them though.

Also in the garden I spotted a late season vapourer moth fluttering around. You might remember this flightless female from a while go...

Well this time it was a male...

But look closely at this picture and you might notice something underneath the moth.It was actually being attacked by a spider. I can't be certain but I think it might be a winter spider (Zygiella x-notata) and once I had realised what was taking place, I switched to video...

                      

Even if I had wanted to, it was too late to save the moth and after all, spiders have to eat too. I left nature to take its course.

The other thing I had a go at recently was underwater videoing. This isn't the most riveting nature film you'll ever see, but we all have to start somewhere and it was more about trying out the camera and technique  for now...

The camera did come out of the water with a little visitor attached though-I think this is a bloodworm...

I'll end this update with a couple of things pretending to be something else -well why not? I pretend to be a photographer. These two seem to be impersonating an owl...

Obviously the second picture is of fungi. The first is actually a moth.

Until the next time...

My Comfort's Wood Blog is HERE

Ps. My latest article for The Wealden has been published and I have added to the relevant page.