Always good to see something new at the wood. Near the entrance there are quite a few Sallow bushes, these developed after the wood was cleared of Corsican Pine. Maybe the entrance was particularly churned over from the timber being stacked up and the to and fro of lorries  and it did develop some wet areas. Anyway I was pleased to see some Sallow and now they are getting bigger, around 4/5 meters high and provide a nice place for birds to land and flit about.

Yesterday I noticed some of the leaves near the top of some of the bushes had been stripped back. I wondered if it could be Saw fly larvae but on investigation I found just one large Hawk Moth Caterpillar. I suspect there had been more than one but the others might have already gone off to pupate.

The caterpillar was a Poplar Hawk Moth, evidently they will eat Sallow and Willow but according to my Observers Book of Large Moths ( which I have had since I was about12!) they do eat Sallow but prefer not to. How they know that I dont know, maybe someone gave them a selection of different leaves and observed which ones they went for.

Any way that is one more species to add to the biodiversity of my little bit of woodland.