Next Season

Rather too dull for Emperor activity at Knepp today, so I went egging instead.

One alpha sallow produced two early-second instar (horned) larvae, a skin-changing first instar larva, a just-hatched larva, two about-to-hatch eggs and a classic yellow-brown egg, and an egg case base with no sign of the larva. Total = 8.

I think I last found horned larvae in July back in 1976 but will check my diaries when I get home. Whatever, eggs are obviously hatching very fast in this heat and larvae are then racing through the highly vulnerable first instar, which is all good news. The bad news, though, is that no rain has shown up, and the sallows desperately need some. 

For the record, four dog walkers went past me whilst I was up my sallow. None noticed a bloke 4-5m up a tree...