The Evil Privet Hawkmoth! (1 Viewer)

[Brian Stone]

Can you believe this?! :-C :stuck:
http://www.peterboroughtoday.co.uk/ViewArticle2.aspx?SectionID=845&ArticleID=1139891

 

[Surreybirder]

Can you believe this?!

I can believe it, but it's enough to make you despair. :storm:
I'd like to see their reactions when a hornet appeared on their lunch!! (Had one in our garden yesterday)
Ken

 

[Wandered Scot]

"Amazing Grace how sweet though art..", why is there no bagpipes in the smiles.

Water way to go.

jim

 

[Brian Stone]

I mean, thinking your kids are about to be attacked by a caterpillar is bad enough but then to flush it down the toilet! And all the time the man of the house was bravely keeping a watch on the telly! God help us all.

 

[Andrew S]

I'd like to see their reactions when a hornet appeared on their lunch!!

Having been scared stupid by the green monster they'd probably just mistake it for a harmless caterpillar.

You can't be too careful though. I've flushed this morning's moths down the toilet, lest they have a go at the fish. Including 70-odd very menacing Horse Chestnut Leaf Miners. Never had more than a handful of this invasive alien before.

 

[Corax67]

Sadly typical of the human psyche

If you don't understand something - destroy it.

 

[Surreybirder]

Are you going to write to the paper to express your views, Brian?!
Pity it's not a protected species.
Ken

 

[Brian Stone]

Sadly typical of the human psyche

If you don't understand something - destroy it.

Yes, and preferably not humanely! :-C

 

[Brian Stone]

Are you going to write to the paper to express your views, Brian?!

I haven't yet been reduced to writing to the local rag.

 

[harry eales]

Can you believe this?! :-C :stuck:
http://www.peterboroughtoday.co.uk/ViewArticle2.aspx?SectionID=845&ArticleID=1139891

Sadly, I think this an all too common attitude amongst people these days, it is also indicative of just how ignorant a large proportion of the population are about wildlife in their own gardens.

I understand that Nature programmes on TV are amongst the most popular of programmes, perhaps if they produced a few films on Bitish Insects instead of innumerable films about African wildlife, coral reefs and sharks people may become better educated about our wildlife.

Living in a small country village I have over the past decade become known as the local naturalist and people do bring things to me for identification. It's a pity that the woman concerned in this newspaper feature didn't ask someone for an identification before condemning a harmless creature to death.

Harry

 

[CornishExile]

Rendered speechless - both at the pointless waste of life, and the ignorance of some people. Can only hope that what goes around comes around...

Jon

 

[Nerine]

Breaks your heart, doesn't it. I wish one of those would crawl out from under my lilac bush, I'd sing for joy and what's more I would show it to my grandchildren and tell them how lucky we all are to see such a beautiful caterpillar.

Nerine

 

[Wandered Scot]

I agree Harry

Once upon a time,when people were still connected to their surroundings, and got dirty finger nails grubbing the cabbage patch, in a time before pesticides, and being better than the 'Jones's, these 'monsters' would have been known about. Now in the great days of drive thru/and drive by shopping everthing, gardens are supposed to be sterile areas of beauty, and child play is sitting 'uninteractively' with electrical gadgets (I love the new Charlie Choclate factory film on that issue!!), otherwise the kids could end up learning some dangerous conservation or green issues, or even worse tell their parents about them.

Hey, wonder if they have a subscription or give to any wildlife organisation, or are just 'loads of money', and 2.5 brain cells?

Jim

 

[Jay23]

Greater privet hawk

Nobody has spotted the mistaken ID! Fully grown final instar privet hawk caterpillars are 3 to 3.5 inches long (max, on a good day ) so this at 5.5 inches was clearly something much bigger, probably the truely horrible Greater Privet Hawk, Sphinx terribilis, you know, the one with the deadly sting.....

 

[harry eales]

Nobody has spotted the mistaken ID! Fully grown final instar privet hawk caterpillars are 3 to 3.5 inches long (max, on a good day ) so this at 5.5 inches was clearly something much bigger, probably the truely horrible Greater Privet Hawk, Sphinx terribilis, you know, the one with the deadly sting.....

Hello Chris,
I think that this is known as journalistic licence. It's funny how some people always enlarge on things.

Harry

 

[Brian Stone]

It's funny how some people always enlarge on things.

Never found the need Harry :'D

 

[Ppedro]

Please dont report me to social services, never knew the danger I was placing my youngest in.

 

[Gill Osborne]

OMG!!!!!!!! It's a Lesser Spotted Hairy Stinger!!!! Poor bairn doesn't stand a chance!!!

It does make me despair just how ignorant and cruel the majority of the population is towards the fellow residents of this planet and stories like this just make me angry and sad......and VERY worried that it's brainless idiots like this who are breeding the next generation!!! They are SO paranoid about their precious little children getting injured by being outside or coming into contact with any germs that kids are growing up without respect or interest in the natural world around them. Yet they don't seem to realise that they are wrapping their kids in cotton wool and encouraging all manner of health problems for the future.......as well as knocking the childrens' immune systems all to pot as has bbeen shown by the increasing numvber of allergies that seem to be around! Gawd, when I was a kid I was always covered in mud, being stung by nettles whilst hunting for caterpillars and - HEAVEN FORBID - forever playing around ponds and streams with my net and watching Sticklebacks and other forms of pond life.........I even had jamjars full of spiders and caterpillars on my booksshelves and a fishtank on my desk......I man, HOW unhygenic is that!!!!! Probably explains why I am NEVER ill!

Hopefully the forthcoming David Attenborough epic about insects will educate a few and perhaps even encourage a few to join us.

Gill

 

[Surreybirder]

this story is even worse:
http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=41288

 

[RichardH_Temp]

First class work posting that Ken. Thanks for the laugh.