Phone Photography 24: Garden Creatures

I was in the garden doing some writing and enjoying the cool afternoon air when I became aware of something moving on the side of my laptop.

The pictures below show the small green caterpillar that caught my attention.

It's September, in Britain. I wasn't anticipating seeing a caterpillar.

The miracles of modern technology allowed me to image search and it appears to be the young stage of one of the many species of sawfly to be found in Britain.

Sawfly belong to the same larger family as wasps, bees, and ants. Some species are known to have three generations in a summer season and this clearly belongs to one of them.

The name sawfly, to me, sounds quite fearsome and, looking at pictures of the damage their caterpillars do to foliage, if I were a gardener of sort the appearance of this would have me scouring foliage for fear I'd awaken to denuded plants.

Having a garden with very little foliage I was not worried and able to relax into appreciating the questing poses it struck while it edged along the edge of my computer.

Seeing signs of biodiversity in a non-plant based garden such as ours (the landlord has it decked and slabbed) at this time of year is heartening. Though I'm still not keen on thinking sawflies are looking to overwinter in the wood we have around the garden.

Though the wood is for a fire pit which should be up and running - or burning - in the next week or two, so there should be no inundation come the spring.

text and pictures by sturatcturnbull