30 Days Wild - day 27

Only a couple of days left now until the end of the project so I thought I would bring you an update on the cinnabar caterpillars as so many of you have been interested in following their progress.

They are now 10 days old and as you can see they finally have their stripes, not quite as brightly striped as they eventually become but definitely striped now.

They have travelled quite a way up the ragwort plant as most of them are now situated right at the top amongst the flower buds.

We have spotted quite a few of these vapourer moth caterpillars on our nature walks all usually in the same area, although they often have very slight colour variations of the tufts on their backs.

We also got to creep up on this small tortoiseshell butterfly as it was feeding on a flower, very beautiful markings.

30 Days Wild - day 17

The moment we've all been waiting for has finally arrived, the cinnabar moth eggs have been hatching all day! We have watched for most of the day, it has been extremely exciting.

At first there were just one or two tiny caterpillars just a few millimetres long. If you click on the photographs to enlarge them you can see the empty egg cases looking like little bubbles and to the left of the hatched caterpillar another one eating it's way out of the case.

Then there were a few more, yellow when they first emerged and covered in tiny hairs. No sign of the familiar orange and black stripes yet.

The children have been so excited to be able to witness this first hand, you can see the caterpillars have started to eat the ragwort as they are filling up with a green colour.

Not many left now, this photograph was taken at around six a few hours after the first ones emerged. You can see that some of the caterpillars have eaten a lot and are mostly green, others which have just hatched are still yellow.

I wonder how long it takes for them to get their stripes... I guess we'll just have to keep watching.

30 Days Wild - day 16

It's been a very exciting day, much watching and much anticipating, the cinnabar moth eggs have been changing colour all afternoon. If you have been following I posted a photograph yesterday of the eggs and they were all yellow. We were hoping to see them hatch but the light is starting to go and I expect they will all be hatched by morning.

This first photograph was taken about three in the afternoon, some of them appear to be darkening. The next photograph was taken at about six in the evening, you can definitely see a difference.

If you look carefully it looks like a tiny hole is appearing in one of the eggs in the centre of the shot, where a little caterpillar is eating it's way out.

I will keep you updated as we know more and try to get some photographs of the newly hatched caterpillars.

30 Days Wild - day 15

We are half way through our wild challenge and it has been a very exciting adventure. We have been waiting for our cinnabar moth caterpillars to hatch and I think it's going to be any day now as this close up photograph shows something visible inside the eggs.

We noticed a lot of ants farming aphids in the wild flower garden, in fact they seem to be all over the plants.

Bees are everywhere, each bee seems to have favourite flowers. This one likes the foxgloves, long hairs can be seen inside the flower like a tickle chamber.

Finally I'll leave you with our friend from yesterday eating his dinner again.

30 Days Wild - day 5

We had a really long day out in nature yesterday, so today has been a little more sedate although we have still spent some time wild. Each year we extend the amount of garden we use for nature and wild flowers. Today we have been watching a regular garden visitor of ours, the cinnabar moth laying it's eggs on the ragwort.

A very attractive red and black moth, the caterpillars are orange and black striped and my daughter affectionately calls them 'tiger pillars'. I will add photographs when our batches of eggs hatch.

My daughter has spent some time looking at the wood lice and feeling them tickle her hand, they are one of her favourites along with snails. We are hoping to create a special habitat for them soon.

One of the new wild flowers in our garden this year is common fumitory and it's doing really well at the moment and attracting the wildlife.

Another wild flower doing well is the oxeye daisy a big favourite with the bees and today I have noticed these beetles... strangely called a varied carpet beetle, the adults like pollen.