Ermine moth caterpillar strings

This morning I went to a plant sale organised by a local gardening club - plants were purchased.

This afternoon I went on a guided walk with the local branch of the Wildlife Trust.  One of our members owns some fields on the Melverley flood plain and he leaves it to nature with some trees and plants put there to stop soil erosion in the floods that happen every year.  He showed us his land plus going around the nature reserve there.

There were lots of birds around but they kept well away from us.  We saw these Spindle Ermine caterpillars (we'd seen them in Somerset last week too).  The adult weaves a web over the spindle bush and the caterpillars hang on the long strings of web .  The bush recovers afterwards as the leaves are eaten by the caterpillars.

I had better photos of the caterpillars but this photo reminded me of a stringed instrument.