Antrim County has a bumper crop of
Eastern Tent Caterpillars
available at reasonable prices.
Please come and sing for your suppers.
Tent Caterpillars. Not my favorites. I spotted this minor infestation along the utility easement near the Writing Studio and Bait Shop. Huh, I thought.
Then I got close enough to take instructive pictures. Yuck, I thought.
When I opened this week’s Antrim Review I saw that Linda Gallagher had scooped me once again. In Antrim County facing huge tent caterpillar hatch she writes that the infestation is unsightly but unlikely to cause lasting damage. County forester Mike Merriwether told her that Northern Orioles and lots of other species will eat the crawly little pests, which I found sort of comforting. I put some orange sections out to attract the orioles. Hope skunks and porcupines don’t like oranges.
Ah well. As is my practice, when I have showed you something as loathsome as tent caterpillars, I will show you something pretty to take your mind off the nasty crawly little things. How about this view of the McLachlan corner? Thought you’d like it. No caterpillars, no skunks, no porkies.
Torch Lake Views 
flandrumhill
May 23, 2009
TENT CATERPILLARS!!! The very words make my skin crawl. We had such terrible infestations of them in Sudbury where I grew up that they devastated trees. Whenever you walked under trees in the summer you’d worry about one of them falling on you. I remember learning about them ad nauseum in biology class in high school.
After I left home my mother would often relate, over the phone, stories of having to hose them off the driveway when they’d become too numerous. Some sections of the Trans-Canada highway even had to be closed at times. If too many caterpillars were on the road, they made driving slippery and treacherous.
I’m so glad we don’t have the same problem with them here in Nova Scotia.
Gerry
May 23, 2009
Holy Wah! I don’t remember ever having that much trouble with the crawly things. These things go in cycles, and I’m hopeful that we won’t have so many next year . . .
flandrumhill
May 23, 2009
BTW, nice graphic photographs. Yeesh…
uphilldowndale
May 24, 2009
But they will become beautiful butterflies won’t they? an infestation of them must be pretty?
Oh yukkkkk so many the road was slippery!! that is gross.
Gerry
May 24, 2009
It is my sincere hope that most of them will become oriole food. Preferably right away.