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When our kids were small they collected toys called transformers, which were model vehicles that turned into menacing robots when you pulled, twisted and rotated their articulated parts. They were marvels of imaginative, miniature engineering but couldn't hold a candle to this wonderful natural transformer - a cabbage white pupa, which I found under the rim of a seed tray in the greenhouse yesterday. Insect metamorphosis is one of the most mind-boggling developmental transformations in the natural world.
Inside this pupal case the caterpillar - an insect eating machine that chewed holes in our broccoli leaves is turning into a 'soup' and reorganising itself into a delicate, winged, nectar-feeding cabbage white butterfly that will emerge next spring.
The caterpillar has pupated fairly recently - over the winter its green shade will turn to pale brown. If you look closely, about one third of the way down the image you can see the silken halter that the caterpillar spun to attach itself to the seed tray - it's last act as a caterpillar.
Click here to see a great YouTube movie of a large white butterfly hatching from its pupal case.
You can read about the biology of insect metamorphosis by clicking here
This must surely be the best year for hedgerow berry crops in recent memory. Last year there were very few berries available when the first of the winter flocks of redwings and fieldfares arrived, but this year the fieldfares that we saw pouring into Teesdale on Saturday were greeted with an almost inexhaustible supply.
Hawthorn
Hawthorn
Rowan
Rose hips
Mild, wet weather has encouraged fungal growth, causing many of the rose hips to begin to rot, so their juices are attracting the last of the red admirals.
There is a saying amongst foresters that 'you should plant as though you are going to live forever'. Sound advice, since most forest trees have natural life spans that far exceed ours - provided that the trees can survive hazards like rabbits, fungal diseases, deer, climate change, gales or developers building more out of town shopping malls.
For any tree planting enthusiast who takes a really long-term perspective and wants to leave a natural legacy, now is the perfect time to plant an oak tree........
.......... because acorns germinate almost as soon as they fall from the tree, producing a sturdy white root that spears down through the leaf litter and continues to grow through the milder days of winter. Then, in spring, the first leafy shoot appear. So pot up a few germinating acorns now and a successful start for the seedlings is almost guaranteed.
It's a 'mast year' for oaks here, with thousands of acorns on the ground. Most will be eaten by pigeons (I once found a dead one with 23 in its crop), deer and mice but the lucky ones might be carried away by a jay from the shade of the parent tree and buried for future use when food is scarce. The jay will probably forget where it cached its winter food supply - and all the while the buried acorns will be sending down those roots, ready for the start of their first growing season. Come to think of it, jays probably give more oak trees a good start in life than we humans do.
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