Cemetery cinnabar moth caterpillar

I started drafting this blog while unknowingly coming down with COVID, and now can’t remember what I wanted to say…

Nevertheless, the photos here are a few phone pics from a wonderful churchyard in Haywards Heath in West Sussex.

The churchyard has views of the South Downs, in this case towards Wolstonbury Hill. I was actually going to be walking there for the coming weekend but the virus has robbed me of that dream. I must spend less time hugging 5G phone masts.

Again, I am so impressed by the detail that the newer phone cameras can achieve. This is probably a furrow bee (I think sometimes referred to as sweat bees?) in a common knapweed flower head. Did you know that daisies are some of the most evolutionarily-recent flowers and they make use of multiple florets, as seen here. Bees are impressed.

Hawksbeard or hawkbits (too ill to check) abound in these Sussex Weald grasslands. This is an Oedemera beetle, so a relative of the iconic swollen-thighed beetle. You may have seen him pumping iron in your local gym.

The nicest find was among the ragwort, a plant that inspires those on the margins of society, and upsets those who worry about their livestock being poisoned by it.

This is a cinnabar moth caterpillar, like the socks of some experimental Netherlands football kit. Their homestrip warns of their toxicity, so I had a sandwich for lunch on this occasion, just to be safe. Not that it made any difference! #Sick

Thanks for reading.

Macro