wildlife

a day with lots of wildlife in and around the garden. several flights of geese have passed over today. a family of long-tailed tits visited again. started pruning back the birch tree in the back garden and found more ladybirds in it than I've seen all summer - some red with black spots, some yellow with black and one red with white spots. the cabbages are still crawling with caterpillars despite my efforts with a soap spray - I don't really want to kill off all of them as I like butterflies, even cabbage whites,just don't want the caterpillars.

also found these strange creepy crawlies - not sure if they are eggs from spiders or butterflies, or cocoons or what.

caterpillars

have a lot of damage from cabbage white caterpillars on the brussels sprouts at the moment. they've been able to munch their way unhindered through a lot of the leaves while we've been away on holiday.I'm now trying to reduce their numbers by spraying with a soap and garlic spray - it does seem to work to a limited extent so long as I use it frequently.there are less cabbage white butterflies around now - mainly seeing speckled wood - on the verbena bonariensis.