Recently, we all went for a walk with our dog Poppy. My reasons for going out were for fresh air, a change of scenery and to take photographs of interesting finds.
Along our walk we came across many interesting plants from purple grasses to the dying thistles. We were also fortunate enough to spot a few insects in front of my wheels. I wasn’t quick enough to capture them all, but here are a few photos from the walk we had that sparked my mind off.
We have seen a lot of these caterpillars over the years. With loving horses, there is inevitably a lot of ragwort to be moved out. The ragwort seems to be their favourite place. I had never thought about what they metamorphosed into before now. It turns out they are the cinnabar moth caterpillar. On our first visit to this same area, Miss A spotted a cinnabar moth hiding from the rain.
Lots of information can be found about their habitat, and the moth they become on the Wildlife trust website.
A little further along the path I was brought to a stop again. At first I had thought there was a twig on the path, but then it moved. As I got closer, I could clearly see it was a caterpillar wiggling its way across the path to safety. It was massive compared to the cinnabar caterpillar, and it turns out it is an elephant hawk moth caterpillar. I have never seen one of these moths, but they look very pretty in the photos here.
As we continued on, we reached the small waterfall area I had wanted to show the children. When I was last there it had been a sunny, warm day and there were children playing in the water. This was not a day to do that, but it was still beautiful.
The path is a circular walk around a mound with a viewing point on the peak. I have ventured up there once, but will not do so again. The paths are not made for a wheelchair, but the view from up there included this area with the waterfall, and the fishing lake it flows down to. This point is around a quarter of the walk. Continuing from there, slightly uphill the path continued with trees on each side. On the left of the path were lower plants with higher trees to our right. I was so surprised to see this sight, I called everyone over to see. I had never seen so many beetles in one spot before, and so much destruction to one plant. On looking them up I found they are Alder leaf beetles. Along the side of the path were plant after plant, all covered in these shiny blue beetles, munching away merrily, leaves peppered with holes all over. From looking this up on the RHS it seems that this doesn’t actually harm the plant.
Continuing from here, we rounded the corner to the last half of the walk which let us view the old colliery building, the path up to the viewing point and a landscaped area between the two.
As I waited for the others to return, I tried spotting more insects and flowers, but also remembered that several years ago, we took the children with us and camped over at a literature festival in the Welsh countryside. It was held at a national trust house and grounds, filled with tents housing authors, workshops and refreshments. One of the talks we attended was by a man who had started a cloud appreciation society for a bit of fun. He had been amazed at how popular it had become and was there to encourage us all to look up and notice what can be found above us (mouths firmly closed). Ever since, we have, as a family, looked to the skies and commented on the shapes, faces and animals we can spot up there in nature’s lava lamp. I think this looks like a stereotypical UFO with the ring in the centre as the light. Hubby thinks it looks more like a snail. What do you see?
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