There have been a few days of quite deep snow but, as the picture below shows, there is only a relatively light cover remaining in Brede High Woods.
There have also been hard overnight frosts and I was surprised to find a drinker moth (Euthrix potatoria) caterpillar stretched along a blackthorn thorn at about chest height when I was looking, unsuccessfully, for brown hairstreak eggs.
The drinker is a grass-feeding species and the caterpillars normally hibernate in grass tussocks or leaf litter. I wondered if this example had climbed up the blackthorn in order to raise its body temperature in the morning sunshine before starting to feed
