Don't panic

These moths are having quite a year - in our part of England anyway. We have seen them now several times on roadside hedgerows - I took some pictures last week but they were unimpressive. They were also on the organic, insect-friendly (!) demonstration farm that we visited, where they had entirely stripped some of the hedgerow shrubs of their leaves

MrsM saw a post on the village Facebook saying not to kill them, the shrubs will re-grow. I hope that's right, because we now have some of our very own. The butterfly conservation trust (BFC) reinforces the message: "[they] slowly disappear over the summer and typically the hedgerow shrubs/trees recover" 

They have two strands to their survival strategy: 1. safety in numbers - the picture is a tiny sample of the hundreds of larvae covering the shrub - and 2. concealment - they weave a matted, semi-opaque web around themselves, the leaves, the branches and (the BFC again), "Sometimes these webs are so extensive that they can cover nearby objects such as benches, bicycles and gravestones"! The web makes the picture a bit fuzzy, but diffuses the light nicely

The adult is a white moth covered in black spots, which is why it is called an 'ermine moth'. Its genus is one of the ugliest words I have ever seen: 'Yponomeuta' - possibly worth remembering for Scrabble. There are hundreds of species but there happens to be one called a 'spindle ermine moth'. Since they are only on the spindle in our mixed hedge, I'm willing to put my money on it