Sunday, November 24, 2024

Storm Damage & Pet Rescue

Storm Bert will have brought a number of older sallows down in the woods. Most of them will regrow, if left alone, as 'walking trees' (as in ' "Narnia awake! Be walking trees..." '). Few of them will be left alone, though.

Fallen sallows present a good opportunity to find and rescue Emperor larvae (either by rearing them in captivity or by tying snipped off larval twigs back on to safe sallows - old-fashioned wire plastic bag fasteners work well).  

A fallen sallow like this is likely to produce a couple of larvae, in or under the crown, at a rate of one every ~45 mins searching -


Crucially, few if any larvae fall off when the tree comes down - their feet are that well attached to the silk pads. Don't underestimate an Emperor caterpillar, just rescue it...

 

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