Tunnellers

Moles are busy all the year round.  I've only ever seen one live mole but there are plenty of molehills to show where they have been.

You may not welcome them in your garden but in Filnore we have no lawns to ruin.  They hunt worms and any other mini-beasts underground and every now and then throw up a molehill to take a breather.  Late March is the mating season so things will soon be hotting up underground.  The molekins arrive in April and are cared for by Mum who builds a nest of grass and leaves, carried underground in her mouth from outside.

If you look carefully at this molehill picture you will see the trail of a bramble leaf miner.  This is the caterpillar of a tiny moth called Stigmella aurella.  The egg is laid between the top and bottom layers of a bramble leaf and the caterpillar, when it hatches, eats the juicy green stuff leaving a thin transparent skin above and below its tunnel.  As it eats it gets fatter and so the tunnel becomes wider.  Eventually it drops out and pupates on the ground, waiting to become a moth itself and repeat the life cycle. 

Sometimes you get two or three in one leaf, which produces a beautiful piece of natural abstract art.  Send me a photo if you find one and I'll put it on the blog.