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Just a couple of days after last week's posting, my own specimen of the Jersey tiger moth was flying about in the front garden. I was putting up a 'rustic' wooden arch over the front gate so that the Chinese Virginia creeper, Parthenocissus henryana

On Saturday I turned over a rose leaf that appeared to be stuck up with a mass of silky threads to reveal a bizarre furry blob - the wingless female of the vapourer moth, Orgyia antiqua. Well, she's not completely wingless, she has tiny vestigial

Dulwich). All ichneumons are parasitic, laying their eggs in a wide range of insects, but especially moth and butterfly caterpillars. The venom injected at the same time contains an immunosuppressant, preventing the immune system of the host insect from

are the larvae of a micro-moth, probably one of the many Coleophora species. Only about 5mm long, they're hidden in a sock-like bag of silk covered in bits of debris and lichen, which camouflage the creatures against the bark.A white aphid proves to be a dead

, they are so numerous in there that their maggots can work through several bucketloads of kitchen waste each week.These are sometimes joined by the smaller, but more delicately fluffy 'moth flies'. I haven't tried to identify these little creatures, even though

), aided by 13-year-old. The 11-year-old swept up and the 3-year-old ate biscuits.And you'll be pleased to know that no wildlife was inconvenienced by the tree's removal. I knocked a Jersey tiger moth from the small cherry tree as I entered the garden area