Cottonwood Catkin

There is a tree near my office that is a defiant, old cottonwood. The trunk and branches are bend and twisted and parts of it are quite past their glory days. Today when I went to view it, I discovered these fuzzy red caterpillar like things. With a little research I discovered that the tree is a male tree and the pollen ( the fuzzy red thing) is a catkin. The female catkin is looser and longer and when it is pollinated, is when the white fluff is created.