Unwelcome Guests

This spring has brought with it a horrendous outbreak of tent caterpillars to all the Gulf Islands, including Bowen.  We have been reading up on these invasive pests and the outbreaks are cyclical usually every 7 to 10 years.  Apparently the last year for an outbreak on Bowen was 2004.  These insidious beasts are tenting in every alder tree you can see, willows, fruit trees and other soft leaf trees.  For me I have never seen anything like it.  We are on a constant vigilant watch for them, plucking them from the leaves of our fruit trees and vegetables and my flower plants.  It is my worst nightmare come true.  Here is a picture of a collection of the critters after only 10 minutes of walking around the yard today.  Chris does this several times a day

There are so many caterpillars that you can actually here their fecal pellets dropping from the treetops in which they are feeding and it creates an auditory illusion of rainfall.  I kid you not.  It is a nightmare.   This past weekend we joined our neighbour Caterpillar Dundee (aka Peter) decked in his safari outfit, for a local BITCH (Bowen Island Tent Caterpillar Hunt).  He managed to arm wrestle a good number of the vicious critters and their tents into a large container while sustaining only a few injuries.  After several hours and many tents and caterpillars later, we cut more branches and trees so we could at least say we did our due diligence.

Caterpillar Dundee built a small crematorium to dispose of the catch of the day, vowing to do it all over again tomorrow.

And so it goes.  We have a few more weeks of this in store, so wish us luck or rather wish our garden luck.  In the meantime, we had an ant hatch in the sitting room which I had to deal with last night, and some unidentified critter is eating the leaves of my lily pads in the pond.  This is starting out to be not a great year for the garden.  Too many unwelcome guests!