Monday 22 September 2008

Munching away

Good news about the London caterpillars (see entries some way below). There are now three. This is good news for them at least, and for me, their long-distance monitor in Leeds. Less good, maybe, for my son's nasturtiums, although their flowering season is approaching its end. And, as you can see, he sowed them rather generously for a mini windowbox, resulting in a miniature version of the plant which I think is a bit of a breakthrough for small-scale London windowsill gardening. Especially with nasturtiums. The less food they get, the more they flower, as opposed to producing big greeny-blue leaves. The caterpillars are named Trig, Trak and Bristol, in honour of the world's new No 1 Fun Person. Superficially, they look boring and green but click on the central picture below and you'll see that they have quite subtle colouring and markings. Can you spot them all in the big picture? It shouldn't be too long before they pupate, unless some pigeon with eagle eyes happens by. But that too would be interesting, in terms of how busy London supports so much wildlife. One of Britain's most unusual moth captures was made just down the road at Buckingham Palace: the Spiny Bollworm, a species only usually found in sub-Saharan Africa, which visited the Palace light trap in 1964, a few days after the Queen had played host to a State delegation from Tanzania.


2 comments:

Anonymous said...

pect the World's No 1 Fun person would have blasted your little caterpillers away with a blast of Agent Orange before they had a chance to enjoy life - even the precarious life of a London window-box. She strikes me as the sort of woman for whom flowers only exist in perfectly manicured arrangements in vases, or perhaps growing neatly in parks in borders. Calvin

MartinWainwright said...

Hi there again! I have a sneaking regard for some of Sarah Palin's characteristics, I have to say. If she and Obama could somehow both win, the US would be a more interesting place. Has anyone questioned all four main candidates on their attitude to moths, I wonder?