Giant caterpillar

A day for a blip-burst, loading up the 28th (this picture) and the 26th, 27th, and 29th...
On our walk back from The Cube (two extras) we took a wrong turning somewhere and had to indulge in some pathless forest bashing for about a kilometer to get back to the road.
One of the unexpected pleasures of this wild walk was finding this giant caterpillar. This is the larva stage of what will become a beautiful elephant hawk moth, Deilephila elpenor (Wikipedia link). However, between the larva and the moth it will overwinter as a pupa, somewhere under the forest floor.
Another unexpected bonus from our unplanned extended walk was finding a lot of chanterelle mushrooms (extra). We found enough to feed all four of us two helping of chanterelles on toast. There are advantages to leaving the path far behind you and heading out into the wild forest where very few people walk.