Entering another world
Today, Lucinda and I spent our lunchtime staring into a tree. We had intended to go for a walk around the reserve, but got no further than the 'formal' gardens. 'Formal' is a bit of a misnomer; although the layout of the gardens is what you'd expect at a large, country house, they're a riot of colour and wildlife.
We stopped randomly by the tree - I can't really remember what for. First, Lucinda spotted a strange-looking caterpillar - small, dark and hairy, but with four bright yellow blobs on its back. It clambered around the leaves and seemed to be on the lookout for a meal.
While Lucinda went back to get her camera (the temptation was too much), another caterpillar caught my eye. This was a slightly more conventional specimen, being green. As the twigs swayed around in the breeze, it looked like it had gone into suspended animation and was paused midway through its leafy lunch.
The more we looked, the more we saw.
The weirdest caterpillar was the last one we found. Some of our colleagues wandered past and we showed them what we'd seen. 'Wow', said Kate, 'that looks like a Stegosaurus caterpillar!'
And indeed it did: its body shape mimicked the birch leaves, being bright green and strangely full of spiky angles. It looked like something a child would draw if asked to doodle an alien.
It's kind of mindboggling when you stop to think that we'd only looked at one small tree. The next one along was probably full of strange creatures too, and the whole of The Lodge is full of trees... and these fellows are what are keeping our blue and great tits fed.
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