Sadly, we have a spruce budworm infestation on our two trees. Happily, the birds are taking advantage of it. I whacked some off, and fed them to the goldfish, who were quite happy!
They devastate the new growth, but the tree seems to be surviving, with new growth at the top. I toyed with the idea of removing the tree, to have a better view out our picture window...
I had to put the bird feeders away, and this is some solace!
In case you missed it, chipping sparrow whacking the worm bodies, perhaps to tenderize them??!!
chipping sparrow from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.
spruce bud worm from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.
Then there are the eastern tent and forest tent caterpillars. They have been merciless in Canada. Winnipeg is bad. We have a mild infestation of eastern tent caterpillars here, but the forest ones are about, too. The tent caterpillars build a tent, and have a white stripe. Like the budworm, above, they won't hurt the trees so much as make some people uncomfortable!
We took the family to the Kiwi Gardens Open House & Art Show.
The girls found some caterpillars and quite enjoyed taking them around to the various are pieces. (News and film at 11!)
Tent caterpillar population swells every 10 years
9 comments:
My guess is that the caterpillars are whacked both to subdue the wriggling and to make them excrete the not so tasty poo. Thanks for another enjoyable post, Jennifer.
I enjoyed the videos, especially the first one, sweet surprises!!
hari OM
As always, I arrive and am entertained by all your wildlife! YAM xx
Beautiful video.
That's brilliant, I never thought of that! Knocking the popp out!
Wonderfully creative nature photography ~ love the cocoon and good to learn about things about Canada ~ thanks ~ ^_^
Thanks for visiting my blog and commenting ~ ^_^
It seems when we have caterpillars it's an explosion. They don't know how to modify their reproduction.
The tent caterpillars are creepy in their large numbers.
Very good of the birds to take care of that!
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