*** Posting to this blog - Please read ***

*** Posting to this blog – Please read ***

Welcome to the St Helens Birds and Wildlife blog. We welcome your reports from across the borough regarding all forms of wildlife. Please click on the "Report a sighting" tab if you would like to contribute to this blog.

We ask that you refrain from posting exact breeding locations of any species which may be considered scarce or vulnerable, and in particular schedule 1 species. In the context of St Helens, schedule 1 species usually means kingfisher and little ringed plover. Little ringed plover should not be reported at all on this blog between 1st May and 1st August.

Scarce or vulnerable species include but are not restricted to any species of wader, ducks other than mallard, all owls, any birds of prey, grey or yellow wagtails, grey heron, all grebes, Cetti’s warbler, water rail, willow tit, corn bunting etc. If in doubt, please ask.

We reserve the right to edit or delete posts which contravene this rule.

Elephant Hawk Moth Caterpillar

I found this elephant hawk moth caterpillar today whilst strimming a garden in Liverpool. I think it was feeding on the willowherb. I've brought it back home because there was nothing left of the willowherb by the time we'd finished. Not strictly in St Helens (well, it is now!) but I've never seen one before and thought it was worth posting.

I've put some willowherb and fuscia leaves in for it, while I work out what to do with it!



Damian P

Posted by at

3 comments :

  1. Anonymous27 September 2015 at 09:06

    Damian, lovely (?) pic; try contacting Andrew Bunting at InFocus, Martin Mere - he'll likely have an idea of what to do.
    John Watson

    ReplyDelete
  2. Andrew27 September 2015 at 21:57

    Saw one near Houghwood golf on the path up to the midden pile last year!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Email28 September 2015 at 18:32

    Cheers for the help John. I've done a bit of research and decided to try and rear it as a sort of project for the kids. So far, I've tried feeding it on both willowherb and fuscia and it wasn't having any of it. I've now transferred it to a box lined with kitchen paper with lots of oven dried willowherb leaves in for it to pupate. I've just checked and it's out of sight somewhere beneath the leaves. I can see that some of the leaves are stuck together with white thread so hopefully it's starting to pupate already. I've now got to leave it be for a few weeks and then can transfer it again once it's fully pupated. I'll keep you posted how it goes.

    Damian P

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments ( Atom )