The moth-er of all caterpillar finds!

A cloudy but warmish Sunday morning for Alex and Fi was spent helping to clear weeds from what turned out to be a very Springwatch-y habitat in the garden of Ms B.

Alex had run across the city fresh from volunteering at Windmill Hill junior park run, while Fi had left home a bit late and scooted along on two wheels to get to the mission (almost) on time.

Ms B had done her homework and greeted the GoodGym pair by name before offering directions to the gate at the bottom of the back garden. They soon held secateurs in their double-gloved hands and had been offered a cup of tea (Alex: yes please, no milk no sugar; Fi: no thank you at the moment, brought a thermos!) and were ready to start pruning and weeding.

After brewing a cuppa, their lovely beneficiary joined them for company and a spot of pruning, as she could more comfortably tend to the the higher stems of the hydrangea bush that had laid claim to the end of the garden.

Having Ms B nearby proved to be invaluable, as Fi and Alex weren’t always 100% sure of what was a weed...

Whilst pruning the hydrangea, Ms B discovered the greenest, chubbiest caterpillar you ever did see! Tools were downed as Fi and Alex cooed over this magnificent creepy-crawly, and Ms B held it aloft near something “scenic” for photographs.

They moved ‘Mr Green’ to the safety of an already-weeded area (aka a Belfast sink) and continued with the task at hand. While digging up a particularly monstrous weed, Fi spotted another huge caterpillar, this time a less neon green and a lot more brown. They decided she should probably be photographed too, after which ‘Ms Brown’ was placed safely in another submerged Belfast sink to avoid injury (or worse!) by the weed-clearing GoodGymmers. Remarkably, a further two huge caterpillars were found (one more of each colour!) bringing the total to a whopping four. All were moved to safety or given a wide berth to avoid injury, because this is GoodGym not BadEntomology...

//... speaking of entomology; for those who are wondering, the caterpillars have been identified by Fi (and Google) as being a Privet Hawk-moth (Mr Green) and a Elephant Hawk-moth (Ms Brown), possibly.. //

It was time for a break and Ms B prepared a cup of tea for them all, as well as a healthy amount of tasty biscuits to munch through as the three had a lovely chat.

Then it was back to the land, and after some more weed-clearing, time was up and though they hadn’t cleared the garden of all it’s weeds and old growth, Ms B was very grateful for the help (and for the encouragement to spend some time in her garden!) and was happy to see the plants properly again.

They bid farewell to Ms B (plus their new caterpillar friends) and Alex set off on foot once again, crossing Bristol to meet friends. Fi hopped back on the bike to cycle to a rendezvous point in town to team up some more GoodGym folk en route to a community mission in south Bristol.