"The Watcher By The Pond"

Ollie dog and I went for a walk in the Norman's Pond area of Fishers Green searching for dragonflies. I spotted this large hairy caterpillar. I've used my 35mm macro lens to show the lovely wild flowers on the banks of the pond behind it.

This is a gypsy moth caterpillar. This moth was presumed extinct in Britain in the early 1900s when breeding sites were cleared and drained.  Occasional records, mainly from coastal southern England, since then are regarded as immigrants. However, it has become temporarily established in a very few areas, these all thought to be accidental introduction.


The moth gave its name to the de Havilland Gipsy Moth plane, flown by Amy Johnson. Sir Francis Chichester named his yachts after the plane and I well remember him circumnavigating the world in Gipsy Moth IV in 1966/67. Unusual for me to compose a blip that features my love of bugs, planes and sailing in one story. :)


My extra is a female ruddy darter dragonfly that I shot through the pondside vegetation from a sitting position. I think it captures the dreamy nature of being a "watcher by the pond."*


*A chapter in a book entitled Nature Close To Home that I bought in the WH Smith book sale for 25p when my children were young.