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Description
III: The lower boughs. Cluster/nest of caterpillars just up from centre middle

Rather a strange phenomonen, and quite spooky and creepy when you get close up. Basically, the Ermine moth ([link] ) caterpillar surrounds entire trees in a web of gossamer cloth, creating a safe environment from predators for itself so that it can strip the whole tree (typically cherries, but not in this case) of its leaves.

These web-encased trees look very different to their green neighbours, there's a grey cloud around them from a distance, and when you get close you can see that the entire tree and the ground around it is suffocated by this thin-but-strong white sheet. The caterpillars are only 1 cm long but they mass in their thousands in bunches within the sheets, and on the end of long tendrils of 'web' dangling from the branches.

I've spent a long time in nature, but this is the first time I've seen this (near Llanbister), and it does seem like a plague or a horror movie. There are literally hundreds of thousands of these caterpillars on each infected tree.

Description
III: The lower boughs. Cluster/nest of caterpillars just up from centre middle

Rather a strange phenomonen, and quite spooky and creepy when you get close up. Basically, the Ermine moth ([link] ) caterpillar surrounds entire trees in a web of gossamer cloth, creating a safe environment from predators for itself so that it can strip the whole tree (typically cherries, but not in this case) of its leaves.

These web-encased trees look very different to their green neighbours, there's a grey cloud around them from a distance, and when you get close you can see that the entire tree and the ground around it is suffocated by this thin-but-strong white sheet. The caterpillars are only 1 cm long but they mass in their thousands in bunches within the sheets, and on the end of long tendrils of 'web' dangling from the branches.

I've spent a long time in nature, but this is the first time I've seen this (near Llanbister), and it does seem like a plague or a horror movie. There are literally hundreds of thousands of these caterpillars on each infected tree.