Last Minute Rush

In the wild, iris larvae rushed belatedly into hibernation during the second half of last week.  On Tues Nov 19th only eight out of 25 larvae I checked were in hibernation.  By Sun 24th, 25 out of 28 larvae seen were in hibernation, one was crawling off to hibernate, another was spinning a hibernation pad and just a single larva was still on a leaf.  By yesterday, the 26th, it seems that all had gone into hibernation, though there were still a fair number of greenish leaves on many of the breeding trees.  2013 remained a 'late' year to the very end, it never caught up after the late spring.

Provisionally, it looks as though an unusual number have chosen to hibernate in forks this year, like these two (spot them!) -