Into Hibernation & Peak Dangle Leaf Season

Emperor larvae are now going off into hibernation. Those on early leaf-fall sallows are already in hibernation, favouring buds, forks and stem scars. 

Here's a typical one by a bud, from Savernake last Saturday - 

Here's one in a scar -

Larvae on late leaf-fall sallows, which are still green, are still on the leaf tips, though they are fully coloured up and ready to go. 

Larvae can go walkabout big time before finding a spot in which to winter - sometimes ending up close to where they started, after wandering many metres. However, it looks as though this year they are not wandering far.  

Here's a most atypical Dangle Leaf, attached to the stem by silk that's come detached from the silken highway spun along the leaf midrib! It wont last long -

The Dangle Leaf season is now in full swing, in the absence of rain and wind. Ben Greenaway found 22 larvae in a (long) day in West Sussex last week, nearly all of them via the Dangle Leaf Method.  

But the Dangle Leaf season may start to wane after the coming weekend, when squalls on a brisk northerly at forecast.