Country diary: Bird cherries, caterpillar silk and a beautiful dead hedge | Susie White

Allendale, Northumberland: How better to use a reluctantly felled tree than to turn it into a wind-filtering wildlife habitat, practical barrier and cost-free fence?A ghost tree shines silver against the greenery of the hillside wood. Sheathed in silk from its trunk to the tips of its branches, this bird cherry has been completely defoliated by caterpillars. These are the overwintered larvae of bird cherry ermine moths, Yponomeuta evonymella, which, having spun their protective webbing, can devo

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Country diary: Bird cherries, caterpillar silk and a beautiful dead hedge | Susie White

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