Natural Behaviour

There is nothing odd about what I do.

I am wearing a Mac in case it rains and in fact it is a good job that I was wearing one because it pelted down.

Of course my landlord doesn’t know what I get up to, he thinks that I am out photographing Bunny Rabbits. In fact you are the only person who knows about this and I think we should keep it that way.

I hope that you like my photographs.

Well they seemed like a nice young couple 🙂

Did you know that they die after they have mated? Well, the female gets to lay her eggs and then she dies, the male just keels over with a smile on his face.

Fortunately mating  takes quite a long time, I watched these two for two and a half hours (I’m a naturalist, I was interested) They changed position a few times but they were still at it when I left.

Here is another couple, I call these Missionary Moths.

Strangely they have chosen to mate right beside a cocoon with an emerging moth.

What was even stranger was that every cocoon that I found with an emerging moth (five) had a mating pair right beside it. I have been reading everything that I could find about Six-spot Burnets but I can not find any explanation for this. I did find that quite a few other people have posted the same situation and there must be a reason for it.

It was the cocoons that I was really interested in. I am not really an insect pervert. You’re not are you? 🙂

Here is a full one.A thunder storm put an end to my games today and I didn’t really get the picture that I was after. It took them ages to get out of the cocoons.

Unlike the butterflies that I know, these moths spin a cocoon of silk and then they get inside it to pupate. They have a little organ near to their mouth for producing the silk. Once inside I think that they go through the same process as a caterpillar, moulting with a chrysalis inside but I am not 100% sure on this, I will read up on it.

The actual picture that I wanted would have come just after these, when they crawl out and start to spread their wings. I didn’t get it today but I think that it is worth following on with, don’t you?

An empty one.

I suppose that you would like some more “Bug Porn”, good job that we are not weird. Here are some beautiful animals instead.

Okay, I’ll do it but listen, don’t ever tell anyone where you got these images from. Can you imagine if the police ever seized my computer?

They would have to make a special ward for me.

Love is all you need.