A Day on the Durham coast

Some plants and animals from a day walking on the cliffs between Seaham and Hawthorn Dene on the Durham coast last week





















Dozens of fully grown drinker moth caterpillars on the steps leading down to Blast beach ...






















..... some had even made it all the way down to the beach

Masses of bird'sfoot trefoil in full bloom on the edge of the limestone quarry

Bloody cranesbill coming into bloom on he magnesian limestone grassland

Wonderful display of buttercups in the meadows at Hawthorn Dene

Not many early purple orchids, but some nice specimens

Some glorious displays of hawthorn near Hawthorn Dene. Best year for hawthorn blossom that I can remember

Common milkwort around the quarry area

There's not a lot of sea pink along this coastline but in full bloom























A goldfinch that seemed to be ill and was reluctant to fly, but with no visible signs of injury

.... and finally, fulmars soaring along the cliffs

Killer unmasked ....

A couple of weeks ago I posted some pictures of a drinker moth caterpillar, together with the larvae and pupae of the parasitic insect that killed it. The killer has emerged from the pupae and it looks like a tachinid fly of some kind.

You can see the prominent calypters at the base of the wings, which are a tachinid characteristic.

This individual has just emerged from its pupa and its wings have yet to expand.

A nasty way to go ....

A few days ago my youngest son and his partner called to say he'd found a drinker moth caterpillar but by the time I went to collect it the caterpillar had stopped feeding and become very lethargic - usually a sign that there were internal parasites gnawing at its entrails.

Sure enough, a day later this little charmer emerged. The maggot burst out from between the segments on the underside of the caterpillar.

The black structure that you can see at the head end seemed to be some kind of horny beak, that it used to cut an exit hole through the caterpillar's skin. Within two days eleven more of these maggots emerged and one by one ............

........ turned into a red pupa within a few hours of emergence. I suspect it's a tachinid fly (click here for pictures of the fly), although I won't know which one until the pupae hatch.

Very Hungry Caterpillars

These two caterpillars crossed our path on Saturday when we were walking along the Northumberland coastal path from Craster to Howick. I'm pretty sure the 'woolly bear' above is a garden tiger moth larva and if so that's good news, because it's a species that has been declining during the long run of mild, wet winters over the last decade or so. I seem to remember reading that it's likely to be an early victim of climate change...

I'm not so sure about this one but I'm thinking it might be a drinker moth larva.....mainly because Abbey Meadows has something very similar on his blog. Can anyone out there help me out with this one?

Assuming I'm correct in my identification, both species overwinter as larvae and resume feeding in Spring, so right now they must be pretty hungry....

Drinker lays an egg

I didn’t realise until I’d taken several pictures of this drinker moth that I’d actually disturbed it in the act of laying eggs. In one photograph you can see three eggs that it’s laid on a cock’sfoot grass leaf, in the other you can see it actually laying one of its grey and white oval eggs. You can find some photos of the caterpillar, which is reputed to drink dew, at http://ukmoths.org.uk/search.php?entry=drinker