Huge caterpillar, but what kind of butterfly does that make?
Alex van Maastricht sent me a photo of what he describes as an oversized caterpillar. This caterpillar looks fantastic with a shiny purple or reddish body. This is a willow wood caterpillar. These caterpillars can easily grow to three to ten centimeters, see Alex’s thumb. Females of the willow wood caterpillars lay eggs with their ovipositors in a crack in the bark of deciduous trees. The caterpillars then gnaw on this tree for usually two years. These gnawed corridors can be several meters long. After two years, the caterpillars are fully grown and they gnaw a large doll room in that deciduous tree. They make cocoons from the sawdust and the spun silk threads. This is where the willow wood caterpillars pupate. After hibernation, they hatch in the spring.
Never pick them up as they will feel threatened and immediately emit an odor that smells like acetic acid. Some people even talk about the smell of a buck during mating season.
Are those also mushrooms those things with curled skins?
In the photo of Marjon Jansen you see a white sphere with brown slips at the bottom. Marjon wondered if this is a mushroom. This sphere does indeed belong to the fungi or toadstools and the name is collared earthstar. The first photo is a macro shot. In the second photo you can see the actual dimensions of the collared Earthstar.
There are nineteen types of earth stars in our country. They all arise in the same way. The Earthstar starts out as a kind of sphere. This is the fruiting body. When this is ripe, the outer layers burst open. These outer layers, also called slips, then bend star-shaped around the fruit body. Inside you can see a smaller ball containing the spore mass. An opening is created in the middle of this smaller ball through which the spores come out. Collared Earth stars are saprophytes and thus live on dead organic matter.
What did I see on the beach of Cadzand?
Els Sigmans sent me a photo of a bird she saw walking on the beach at Cadzand. She had already looked in the books and so she already knew that this is not an oystercatcher and not a small sandpiper. I think this is a stone walker. Because the photo was taken from a distance and hardly any light falls on the bird, the plumage has a very dark appearance. In addition, the turnstone wears the winter plumage. Turnstones usually operate in groups, with all the turnstones tipping over with their beaks all kinds of material, seaweed, oysters, shells and stones to find food. Their English name is therefore very logical turnstone. In our country, turnstones are wintering and migrating birds, not breeding birds.
On the leaf of a laurel was a dragonfly that I could photograph closer and closer
In May last year, Han van Diesen took a whole series of photos of a dragonfly that just stayed put. At least, that’s how he described it. Of course I can’t post all those photos, so I picked one. The dragonfly he photographed is, I think, a horse biter. This name came about because people thought that this insect bites, among other things, but that is not true. Perhaps it’s because this dragonfly can often be seen on horses – and other animals – because the horse biter preys on insects that live very close to their bodies. It looks like the horse biter is biting the horse. By the way, Han van Diesen was lucky that he encountered this dragonfly while sneaking out, because then they are defenseless. The horse biter must first warm up and the wings must be inflated. This often takes an hour. The colors are not all in the picture yet.
Waiting for privacy settings…
From egg to great tit
Jeannine Hermans read my story about great tits in Stuifmail. She also saw activities around her two nesting boxes by the great tits. But they weren’t busy with building materials yet. This is correct, because it is still a little too early for that. Now the cabbage and blue tits are mainly engaged in pairing and nest box inspection. Sometimes there are also riots between the couples. Especially if there are too few nesting spaces. After making the nest, the females will lay eggs and breed. When the fry hatch from the eggs, there is enough food because then the caterpillars and insects are present. In the video above from egg to great tit from Early Birds you can see, among other things, the nest building.
Who is that pigeon-eating bird?
May Winklaar sent me a photo of a ‘pigeon eating’ bird and wondered which bird this is. The photo is not completely sharp, but I dare to put a name on it. I think this is the female of the sparrowhawk. Sparrowhawks prey mainly on sparrows, small passerine birds – such as great tits and blue tits – and finches. The larger female can also catch thrushes, starlings and jackdaws and sometimes pigeons. Sparrowhawks belong to the hawk family. Hawks and sparrowhawks are therefore very similar. By the way, you come across sparrowhawks more in the built-up world than hawks, because hawks are real forest birds.
Waiting for privacy settings…
badger and hedgehog
In the video by Ton van den Bersselaar above you see a badger consuming food. A hedgehog stays still at an appropriate distance, because I think the hedgehog knows that it is also food for badgers.
If a badger detects a hedgehog and he is hungry, he grabs the hedgehog, kills the poor animal and eats the hedgehog inside, see the remainder in the photo above.
Follow-up notifications of collared parakeets
Two weeks ago in Stuifmail I paid attention to Roland, who had seen ring-necked parakeets in Veldhoven. He wondered if there are more people out there who have seen these birds.
Ineke Gravendeel lives in Almkerk. She says that she was recently in Dubbeldam near Dordrecht. There saw and heard a whole flock of ring-necked parakeets. “Bright green. So they appear everywhere!”
Marij van Driel says that ring-necked parakeets have also been spotted in the Leijpark in Tilburg a long time ago. “But unfortunately I didn’t see them myself.”
Wim Mols made in November 2020 photos of lovebirds in their garden in Diessen. “I think they raised youngsters in 2021. I haven’t seen them since the late summer of 2021, they may have moved, I don’t know. So there are not only ring-necked parakeets between Veldhoven and Rotterdam.”
Nature tip; First Van Gogh National Park walking route – Nuenen
The first Van Gogh Hiking Route in the Van Gogh National Park opened on Thursday at the Vincentre Museum in Nuenen. The new ten-kilometre walking route immerses walkers in the landscape as Vincent van Gogh once saw it. The route is the first of a series of walks that the Visit Brabant route bureau is developing in the Van Gogh National Park, which is taking shape in Brabant. Later this year, Van Gogh walking routes will follow around Helvoirt, Tilburg, Zundert and Etten-Leur.
From the center, the route takes you past some special Van Gogh monuments and the grounds where Vincent painted his first masterpiece, ‘The Potato Eaters’. The visitor mainly walks on unpaved paths and is taken into nature as Vincent van Gogh saw it: poplar landscapes, stream valleys, swamp forests and fields alternate. It is a varied route in the farmland so much loved by Vincent and the Nuenens Broek nature reserve, where the Brabants Landschap foundation is committed to nature conservation.
More information:
• A paper walking map is available at the Vincentre in Nuenen and in the webshop of Visit Brabant.
• A walking map costs 2.95 euros.
• The walking route has a length of ten kilometers.
More information can be found on the website Van Gogh Brabant and the website of the Vincentre in Nuenen.
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