Tiny Tuesday - Poplar Hawk Caterpillars

My afternoon started most peculiarly! I came home and glanced at my son's collection of moth eggs. My son found a poplar hawk moth (blip 3rd July) and he put it in his butterfly house to study it. Overnight it laid 164 eggs (yes he counted them) and research suggested they would hatch after 7 days.

In honesty I wasn't sure if they would because the eggs are so small and the moth so big. So, when I glanced at the eggs I noticed some had changed colour. Upon further inspection I discovered that the caterpillars had started hatching! The eggs that had changed colour had simply emptied of their contents and become translucent.

Many of the eggs hatched throughout the afternoon to reveal these tiny caterpillars and I thought it was perfect today's theme of Tiny Tuesday. I took the caterpillars in their home to school when I picked up the children and needless to say my son was thrilled (my daughter was also quite excited). This also meant that we needed to go and source the correct leaves to feed them. They eat willow leaves and I had no idea where to look but my lovely friend Mrs HCB came to the rescue and told me of a location not too far from me so we all went for a walk in the rain and collected some leaves.

This was yet another educational day for me as well as my children as I have never seen such tiny caterpillars and they are quite fascinating to watch. Apparently as they grow they will shed several skins so we will watch them with interest! They will also eat several leaves a day so I will no doubt be trying to source food supplies for them. I will also need a bigger butterfly house!

Additionally my knowledge of trees isn't very good so I had to check what trees to look for but now I know.

Mrs HCB also told me of a new app to take photographs on so I can get more detail so I have played around with it taking these photos today!!!

Happiness can be found in the small things - today this is certainly true.