Well after a dull morning that I spent running round tidying up around the house and sorting the Gite for the new season, the sun came out and it got really quite hot, probably over twenty five degrees and as such it bought out a lot of creatures to bask in its glory.
It also bought out a major danger that roams French Gardens, the Processionary Caterpillar, they can be found in Pine and Oak Trees, the adult moth lays the eggs in the trees and they then live in their cobweb like nests until it's time to leave, they go in one long line one just touching the one in front, last year I had a procession of over one hundred and fifty of the little beasties that was about six metres long. They are about 4-5cm long but have approximately 64000 hairs that are like needles that contain a toxic venom that is highly dangerous if you get them on your skin it is like a burn, one small one once fell on to my back when I was doing some pruning, I was unable to ware a shirt for three days until the irritation died down. They can be very harmful to lots of animals, dogs for instance sniff at them and if the hairs go up their noses it can cause major problems, even kill, we are obliged by law to kill them and remove the nest, I get well wrapped up and cut the nests down then burn them.
Sorry did not see these until they were curling up for the night but a least you can see what they look like, immediately after this I killed them as humanely as possible so that non of our animals were hurt, we have to be constantly on the lookout for them at this time of year.
You can clearly see the tiny creatures that must have not long hatched, you can see just how many there are per nest as the cone top left is about 10cm.
I mentioned the other day the noise that comes from some of the trees as the bees go about their work of gathering pollen, well today in the afternoon sun I manage to capture these images, they are not great because the wild honey bees are quite small and obviously I could not get too close.
They love the willow trees that border the pond, at this time of year they are full of lovely yellow pollen as you can see.
You can easily see the amount of pollen that these little creatures can carry on their back legs, sometimes I am amazed that they are able to take off at all, however they do and are capable of flying long distances carrying their precious loads.
This one is not a honey bee but a strange one with a very long what looks like a proboscis that it uses to reach the pollen, he is nicely striped and is larger than the honey bees but smaller than a bumble bee, it spent most of its time hovering rather than actually landing on the flowers.
Tomorrow I will try and capture a few shots of the large edible frogs we have in and around the pond, I have just been out with the dogs and it is the first night I have clearly herd the croaking of the what Sue calls the Waikiki frogs
It also bought out a major danger that roams French Gardens, the Processionary Caterpillar, they can be found in Pine and Oak Trees, the adult moth lays the eggs in the trees and they then live in their cobweb like nests until it's time to leave, they go in one long line one just touching the one in front, last year I had a procession of over one hundred and fifty of the little beasties that was about six metres long. They are about 4-5cm long but have approximately 64000 hairs that are like needles that contain a toxic venom that is highly dangerous if you get them on your skin it is like a burn, one small one once fell on to my back when I was doing some pruning, I was unable to ware a shirt for three days until the irritation died down. They can be very harmful to lots of animals, dogs for instance sniff at them and if the hairs go up their noses it can cause major problems, even kill, we are obliged by law to kill them and remove the nest, I get well wrapped up and cut the nests down then burn them.
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| A nest I must remove tomorrow |
Sorry did not see these until they were curling up for the night but a least you can see what they look like, immediately after this I killed them as humanely as possible so that non of our animals were hurt, we have to be constantly on the lookout for them at this time of year.
 |
| Another nest |
You can clearly see the tiny creatures that must have not long hatched, you can see just how many there are per nest as the cone top left is about 10cm.
I mentioned the other day the noise that comes from some of the trees as the bees go about their work of gathering pollen, well today in the afternoon sun I manage to capture these images, they are not great because the wild honey bees are quite small and obviously I could not get too close.
They love the willow trees that border the pond, at this time of year they are full of lovely yellow pollen as you can see.
 |
| Flying In |
You can easily see the amount of pollen that these little creatures can carry on their back legs, sometimes I am amazed that they are able to take off at all, however they do and are capable of flying long distances carrying their precious loads.
This one is not a honey bee but a strange one with a very long what looks like a proboscis that it uses to reach the pollen, he is nicely striped and is larger than the honey bees but smaller than a bumble bee, it spent most of its time hovering rather than actually landing on the flowers.
Tomorrow I will try and capture a few shots of the large edible frogs we have in and around the pond, I have just been out with the dogs and it is the first night I have clearly herd the croaking of the what Sue calls the Waikiki frogs
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