Caterpillar update  

We've had a busy few weeks collecting, feeding and monitoring Small Tortoiseshell and Peacock caterpillars. We've processed over 1000 with only about 20 left to monitor for parasitism or pupation. We are now in the period between the first and second generations of Small Tortoiseshells, and have only found one small nest of Peacocks in the past week so they might be drawing to a close.

In order to get an idea whether different parasitoids attack throughout the summer and whether there is seasonality in parasitism rates, we need to find just as many nests for the second generation of Small Tortoiseshells so we still would be very grateful for any sightings of caterpillars on nettles.

We collected some Painted Lady caterpillars that had been laid on nettles also to see if the parasitoids target them too, and collected some from thistles to see if they avoided parasitism by using that host plant. Results should be interesting!!

Still no Comma caterpillars collected. We would be extremely grateful if anyone can give us sightings or information to help us find Commas. I saw 3 Comma adults at Leighton Moss last week which bodes well for the next generation.

Parasitoid news 

Only wasp parasitoids of the moths that have been collected have hatched into adults so far.

So far the data inputting (which isn't up-to-date!) shows a 47% parasitism rate of the nymphalids. During processing, it appeared that there were more flies early in the season, with a far greater number of wasps more recently. However this could be due to the host species as we had more Small Tortoiseshell nests to start with and huge numbers of Peacocks in the past few weeks. But we'll have to wait to see what the data have to say