On 23 August last year I spotted some strange creature on the lawn, in my back garden. I investigated and found that it was a caterpillar, the size of my index finger. Fortunately Gardeners World ran a piece about wildlife in gardens and I was able to identify it as an Elephant Hawk Moth caterpillar. Hopefully it found a spot in the flower border to bury itself and will emerge this spring as a moth.
Catherine Ford
Your Forum
This forum has now been more or less replaced by the Club's Facebook page at 
The weblog below is for naturalists to use to report interesting sightings, ask questions, report on field meetings and generally post pictures and any information or questions generally relevant in some way to the wildlife and geology of Essex. You will need to register and be logged-on to post to the forum, and you need to upload pictures first, for use in posts. Find out more
The weblog below is for naturalists to use to report interesting sightings, ask questions, report on field meetings and generally post pictures and any information or questions generally relevant in some way to the wildlife and geology of Essex. You will need to register and be logged-on to post to the forum, and you need to upload pictures first, for use in posts. Find out more