The elephant in the room

In our wildlife garden, weeding isn't a task that I usually worry about too much, save for the occasional bout of removing seedheads from the pernicious species like docks and ragwort. Indeed, at the moment, the ragwort flowers are serving up nectar for many insects such as hoverflies and moths, as well as providing a hunting ground for harvestmen.

However, lately, both Megan and I have commented that the rockery needs a bit of a tidy-up, prompted by many of the geraniums going over, the bed not looking as glorious as in the Spring and some of the generalist wildflowers getting a bit big for their boots roots.

One recent afternoon, I rounded up a trug, a kneeling pad, gloves and a pair of secateurs from the garage and set to the "W" word along the edge of the rockery by the path to the front door. The usual rule applied, I had to identify each individual removee before I yanked it from the soil, both to exercise my ID skills and to ensure that I wasn't too gung-ho with the weeding.

"Groundsel, Broad-leaved Willowherb, Procumbent Pearlwort," I murmured to myself, as I slowly worked my way along the edge of the path.

"Broad-leaved Willowherb, Common Ragwort, Creeping Buttercup, Broad-leaved Willowherb, grass," I continued, revealing that I still haven't got to grips with the grass ID booklet.

I removed some dead flower heads from a couple of thrift plants and several geraniums before returning to my mantra, "Grass, Broad-leaved Willowherb, Creeping Buttercup, another grass, Common Ragwort, Broad-lea... Wow!"

Sat on a stem that I was about to uproot was a caterpillar, it was quite large, dark in colour, with distinctive "eye" spots on its head and a tail-spike on its bum. I had a reasonable idea of two possible species it might be, but would need to consult an ID guide to be sure. Megan was informed of the situation with a shout of "Caterpillar!" as I ran indoors to collect camera and book.

There followed several excited minutes of photography, leafing through pages, big grins and the realisation that this was a lifer for Megan, and all within two meters of our front door. At about 35mm long, the caterpillar was only about halfway through its larval stage (I had seen several previously, both 80mm+ monsters, at either end of the mainland, one in Sussex and one in Caithness).

As it turned out, the eye spots and distinctive tail-spike were diagnostic for Elephant Hawkmoth, not Small Elephant Hawkmoth. As we read about the life cycle of this insect, we calculated that an adult female moth must have been egg-laying in our garden one night about three and a half weeks ago. That would've been something to see!

Caterpillar of Elephant Hawkmoth Deilephila elpenor

You may be wondering which plant the caterpillar was feeding upon? It was the Broad-leaved Willowherb and I am now banned from removing any more. Sadly, we haven't seen the caterpillar again, not helped by two days of wet weather, but we're hopeful of another view before it pupates.

As an aside, the photo at the top of the post was taken this afternoon. As I zoomed into it on my computer to see which plant species were present, I noticed another caterpillar which wasn't obvious when I was outside with my camera. So it was back out into the drizzle to see if I could locate it.

Again, Broad-leaved Willowherb was the food plant, but it wasn't the larva of a butterfly or moth, it's a sawfly, possibly Tenthredo colon.

Possible larva of the sawfly Tenthredo colon

Here it is in the original photo

Have any chores been brought to an abrupt halt by interesting wildlife in your garden? Spiders need not apply!