Red Admiral Caterpillar

Went for an amble up the cycle path as we haven’t been for some time. Warm with sunny spells though quite a bit of heavy cloud around. The purple loostrife , water mint and fleabane were in flower. Saw quite a good variety of butterflies including a painted lady and a couple of common blues, a few small tortoiseshells and red admirals. On some nettles we were really pleased to find several broods of small tortoiseshell caterpillars from a new nest web to some well advanced caterpillars. Close by was a brood of red admiral caterpillars. These are less social and sew themselves into the individual nettle leaves.