the Garden and a very special return!

Another of my "garden catchups" with some very special news. Back in the day (5 years ago) my mum used to have a clematis at the bottom of the garden and every year it would pick up one or two broom moth caterpillars and I loved seeing them, not only because they gave me a sense of satisfaction in being able to i.d. them positively curtisy of I-spy, but they are also stunning creatures and that alone was one of the reasons why I was sad to hear that our
next-door-neighbour had cut down the clemitis, which was their food plant!

Alas, I had 5 broom moth free years, when there was also a decided lack of any caterpillars! however, the winds of change are heralding and about a week ago, my mum called me to say that there were some caterpillars feeding on her sweet peas. You can image how pleased I was to find out that they were brooms! I am slightly worried, becuase this is rather late in the season. As before they were feeding in about july not september! Even so it was still a pleasure to catch up with this stunning and iconic caterpillar.

And they were not camera shy, thye barely moved at all, which helps a great deal whilst trying to get some record shots...

That weekend there was more good garden news with a new garden butterfly tick-speckled wood. It was really a forthcoming even, seeing as though they are everywhere at the minuet. It would have been bad luck to not to pick one up but even so its just great to see one, on home turf.

It rested on the garage wall for quite some time before I spooked it trying to remove an offending leaf from my photo screen. it was still great to see!