Wildlife Photography across the Water: caterpillar

Friday, 3 June 2011

New garden Species

As regular readers will know, I have converted two thirds of my back garden to a wildlife garden with only native UK wild plants.

Just before you go through into the wildlife garden, the more formal garden has many cottage garden plants in it.

A couple of weeks ago, we noticed a few small caterpillars on one of the new plants that we put in this year. the plant is a Verbascum, and this type is called 'Southern Charms' and then the word mullein is mentioned.

Now Jac and had couldn't make up our minds about what type of caterpillar it was, because my caterpillar books were non existent, as all my guides tended to focus on the moth or butterfly form. Jac thought it was a Burnet as we had those in the garden last year, but given that I had photographed that a bit ago in this blog, I was certain it wasn't that, but didn't know otherwise.

Well at the same time we went to the Bird Fair that I reported here, and the good folks from the Butterfly Conservation Warwickshire said 'Oh, that's a Mullein' and showed us in the book that I mentioned recently Link below.

So we bought the book and what a great reference work it is.

Now the full latin name of the species is Shargacucullia verbasci., common name Mullein. And the plant it was on Verbascum and the word Mullein on the label !!!!

So the moral is use all the clues in front of you and you might find things out for yourself.

Anyway, we either bought the plant with the eggs on it from the nursery - quite possible, or the moth came in overnight and laid - also possible.

Now the caterpillars went from very small to quite large, about 40mm and after a while disappeared. So either the Blackbirds got them, or hopefully they have cocooned themselves in the ground. If the latter, then we wont see the resulting moth for up to five years.

So this is the first caterpillar that I have bought you from the garden, although it wasn't in the wildlife garden. So we still have to break that particular 'duck'

I had a great haul from the moth trap last night, as I continue to record the creatures of the night that we get here and will bring you some different species, with a couple of crackers in future posts.

So that's enough words, here's the little beastie on the larval foodplant.

Have a great weekend

Martin

Saturday, 31 July 2010

Garden Visitors

When you read this i will be in California, I wrote this a couple of days ago as i will be busy hopefully shooting sea otters and ground squirrels, My wife got up early to get ready for work and left me in bed to get over the jet lag from the UK trip when all of a sudden she started to call my name, I rushed down stairs to find her in the garden, She said that something was eating her tomato plants and on closer inspection i found a large green stripy caterpillar-what a beauty so i instantly started to get some images,It turns out that it is called a Tomato Hornworm, I moved the plant into the middle of the garden to get a better background and noticed more, In total i counted 8 on 2 plants, I kept an eye on them and throughout the day got images, the light was bright so i waited for the sun to go behind the clouds, Tomato plants are scruffy looking plants and the backgrounds were not as clean as i would have liked so i got some white paper and used that as a background, Not very natural but it made the caterpillar stand out and this kind of photography is becoming popular and is used many times in magazines so who knows, I ended up shooting with white paper in one hand and balancing a reflector with my leg and pressing the shutter button with the other hand, By the end of the day i had around 200 images to choose from so here are a few

Keep your eyes peeled when checking your flowers and veg patch, It may hold many suprises and make your day just like these did for me
All images shot with a Nikon D3s and Sigma 180 macro at F11 or F16
Dave

Bio's

David Courtenay, a self taught wildlife and nature photographer, has been capturing images for over 30 years. He has had a passion for wildlife since early childhood and remembers being glued to the television whenever Survival, Wildlife on One and other natural history documentaries were shown. In the 2006 he swapped his established career for the life of a wildlife photographer, such a move demands a measure of uncompromising passion and commitment.

David has travelled extensively throughout Europe as well as spending more than 7 months in India working with local guides and trackers in search of Bengal Tiger, Asian One horned Rhino and Asian Elephant. He has also photographed Wildlife in Australia, Malaysia, Thailand, Sumatra, Africa, Canada and America. Working closely with Conservation companies he tries to raise funds to help Wildlife that has been put on the endangered list by poaching and habitation loss

Martin Dyer has had a passion for avian wildlife since childhood, particularly raptors. Photography was also another keen interest and it was with the specific availability and control of the whole process that digital offers that Martin was then able to combine the two in 2003. Based in the UK, Martin is a regular visitor to Scotland, specifically the Isle of Mull to watch the Eagles resident there. Other trips to Europe and around the UK are usually part of Martin’s agenda in a typical year.

However, as a firm believer on making the most of the local patch, Martin has spent a lot of time and hard work creating a wildlife garden which is reaping the rewards with many new species and varieties of wildlife. A keen member of a number of wildlife photographic groups, Martin is keen to expand his portfolio into other areas of wildlife, and has already established a wide portfolio of images of fungi.