Netted Carpet hunt

Today was the annual Netted Carpet caterpillar search day. We all met at Brantwood on Coniston Water as the rain stopped. We were shown some of the food plants, Touch-me-not Balsam, in the car park. This plant is our only native balsam, and is an annual that grows on disturbed ground like road edges and where cattle trample around. If you touch it, it fires it’s seeds at you! There were a few of the well camouflaged caterpillars to be seen, and one was in the typical pose braced between stem and leaf.
Then we set off in groups to do a search and count. This was very successful with some plants having up to 5 caterpillars and many patches of plants in the gardens and woods nearby.
They are a rare success story, the cattle management in the woodlands creating plenty of areas for the moth to colonise, and the gardeners at Brantwood are very supportive of the project and proud of their patches of balsam within the gardens.