Friday 7 November 2008

Chrysalis and wasps

I have been keeping an eye on the large white caterpillar that climbed up the wall from the nasturtium's mentioned in my last blog. The caterpillar climbed as high as it could and then attached itself with silk. Since then it has been getting shorter and fatter as the chrysalis developed beneath the skin.
I have been decorating the front of the house, and as you can see I had to paint around the caterpillar.

This morning I noticed the caterpillar had finished developing into a chrysalis. The skin splits away to reveal the chrysalis. You can see the remains of the skin at the end of the tail end of the chrysalis.

I noticed some wasps flying around the tree that hangs over our back garden from a neighbours. They were mostly high up but occasionally one would settle close enough to see. They look slightly different to common wasps, but I can't be certain. I need to try to get a photograph of the wasps face markings.
This one was caught in a spiders web.

While watching the wasps a red admiral butterfly flew over the garden but did not settle.

1 comment:

Jane Adams said...

Loved your pictures. I have pics of a queen wasp on my blog at http://urbanextension.wordpress.com/2008/04/02/spring-into-action/ I love the patterns on them... even though most people can't stand them! Jane