In pictures taken in early July, cinnabar moth caterpillars crowd on their preferred food plant, a ragwort.
Ragworts have evolved poisons to discourage insects and other animals from eating them. Cinnabar moths in turn evolved to be immune to these poisons, to be able to store them in their own bodies to discourage their predators. That’s handy when their adult form is quite large for a moth, day flying, brightly coloured and generally quite conspicuous.
The moth advertises it’s bad to eat by its warning colouration: black and yellow stripes in the caterpillar, black and scarlet in the adult.
Pictures zooming in on one of the greater black-backed gulls on the weir at Exeter in yesterday’s post. The pictures were all taken from the same vantage point on the footbridge across the river, using the camera in a mobile phone.
A weir on the River Exe near the centre of Exeter. There’s a pair of greater black-backed gulls at the bottom of the weir. On the left, the outdoor dining area for the Mill on the Exe pub / hotel is a good spot to relax and watch the river with its bird life.
The jackdaw at the Imperial in Exeter, once it made its survey of the area from the marquee guy rope, flew down to the ground.
It was so close it was almost within reach, so it was wary enough to keep a close eye on me. But that didn’t stop it stalking round in search of crumbs to scavage.
A beer garden – the Bridge Inn at Topsham – overlooks a small river where there’s usually quite a bit of bird activity. It must have been the wrong state of the tide, and summer’s the low season anyway, so there was very little activity there.
To stop myself from knocking back my beer too quickly, I looked around for picture possibilities among the weeds growing among the benches, such as these grasses.
The Imperial is one of four Wetherspoons pubs in Exeter, and must be one of the showpieces of the chain. It’s set in extensive grounds. The core of the building was constructed for the then Devon County Architect in 1810, and was later further embellished by subsequent wealthy owners.
The fittings in the ballroom came from a country house a few miles outside Exeter, while the Orangery was originally built for what is now Reed Hall, part of the nearby University. Various websites claim it was originally designed as a heated palm house (plausible given the height of the glass roof) and that it was designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel (it’s an impressive piece of Victorian engineering, and he must have spent time nearby working on the GWR, so it might just be possible).
The huge grounds mean the pub has a very extensive bear garden. It’s also adjacent to the leafy campus of the University, so the area is a haven for some wildlife.
It’s popular with corvids, which must supplement their diet with bits and pieces which the pub’s patrons let fall from their meals and snacks. Here, one of the jackdaws perches on one of the guy ropes of a marquee, yards from where we were having an early lunch.
