In message , Janet Baraclough
writes

"K" wrote in message
...

Ragwort is a native UK plant which is a primary food plant for the
cinnabar moth, listed on the UK Biodiversity Action Plan as rapidly
declining.

In my childhood, every ragwort seemed to be crawling with handsome
stripey cinnabar caterpillars and later we saw clouds of moths.
but I hadn't seen any caterpillars for years . Last week, weeding the
drive, I found a very stunted ragwort with two tiny
cinnabar caterpillars on it. A couple of days later, no more had
appeared, and the two had almost exhausted their larder so I moved them
to a full-grown ragwort plant
where they are gobbling and growing fast. I walked up the lane
inspecting every ragwort I could find, not one caterpillar. Dunno why;
there's no chemical spraying here.

What luck to have them in my garden !

Janet


I haven't noticed any caterpillars this year, but that adults are in
plague proportions in some localities - last Friday I photographed a
sprawling tufted vetch covered in score of them.

But there were plenty of mullein moth caterpillars on a great mullein in
my allotment.
--
Stewart Robert Hinsley