Friday 22 April 2016

Imperial Grandchildren




It's only a few weeks since Penny and I became grandparents for the second time. But now look what's happened.  It's beyond my capabilities to count this little lot until they are bigger and the risk of one slipping off a leaf un-noticed is less. But I'd guess we've a score or more of the little chaps.

They eat A LOT. Luckily we have hawthorn in good supply

These are the offspring of the two Emperor moths which hatched last month, the male waltzing off into Walthamstow where we were on a visit, and the female spending just the day there, broodily on a garden fence, before accepting recapture, return to Oxford and release here. In the meanwhile she had laid a nice clutch of eggs. The experts on the Upper Thames Moths blog thought that they looked fertile; and so it proved.



I suspect that the catties were actually born on HM the Queen's 90th birthday yesterday, which is nice. We watched a bit of a TV programme about the Royals last night which had the young Princess Elizabeth talking rather touchingly about her ideal of service to what she called the 'Imperial family'. On that note, here is the Imperial family of my little brood:

Mum...

...Dad...

...and Granny





2 comments:

Ragged Robin said...

Congratulations on the eggs - so excited for you :) Mine continue to snooze in their cocoons!

Martin Wainwright said...

Thanks v much - I also have two slumbering cocoons. Still time for them to wake up this year. Otherwise they'll be heading for a third winter's sleep. All warmest M