An unexpected guest

Last night I was sitting behind the house with some friends, when I heard a “plonk” where no plonk should be. I looked and found the biggest caterpillar I’d ever seen. It had crawled up a grass stalk but then gravity happened and it ended up on the terrace.

Turns out it’s the mature form of the Elephant Hawk Moth which are indeed about 8 cm (3″ and a bit) long. After taking the pictures I took the hapless traveller and put it some place with more green.

Picture of an Elephant Hawk Moth climbing a stalk.

Elephant Hawk Moth in training. ©Giliell,all rights reserved.

Elephant Hawk Moth caterpillar.

Elephant Hawk Moth in training. ©Giliell,all rights reserved.

Elephant Hawk Moth caterpillar.

Elephant Hawk Moth in training. © Giliell, all rights reserved.

Elephant Hawk Moth caterpillar

Elephant Hawk Moth in training. © Giliell, all rights reserved.

Barcelona: Camping 2: The mini farm

As I mentioned before, the camp site used to be a piece of farming land, and they still keep some animals that reflect the place’s history. It has a “public” meadow where visitors can see them and a “private” meadow where the animals can go if they want their privacy. We were lucky to be next to the private part. The management offers you to switch places if you don’t like the animal noises, but I quite enjoyed the chickens (no rooster, though), the sound of the goats  and the occasional braying of the donkey.

Once a week the children can enter the meadow for an hour, but it is also ok to feed them appropriate snacks through the fence.

A donkey grazing

Pitufo (Smurf), the donkey. His companion is a mule and he quite like scritches behind the ears.

Close up of a donkey's head.

Isn’t he a beauty?

In case you’re wondering about the leather strips in front of his eyes, they keep the nasty flies away.

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The Humble Potato Blooming

The humble potato does have pretty flowery, albeit a little small.

Only after I downloaded the picture into my PC have I noticed the hiding Colorado potato beetle. Damn. I have thought I nabbed them all. Time to go out with a jar with a few drops of acetone again. Unfortunately I doubt the beetles will listen to reason, it is either them or me.

Oh and btw, if you ever heard or read that in former Soviet bloc the propaganda was saying that the CIA was intentionally dropping the beetles from airplanes on crops in order to starve us, it is true.  It was taught in schools until the end of the cold war. We were told this as late as in 1980’s. Until today when someone says the colloqual term “americký brouk” (american beetle),  most people will know what the talk is about.

©Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.