I went out to Tunstall Common last night to have a look at a couple of the periodic larval survey sites and to do a rough check on numbers and at what stage the larvae were. One of the sites had quite a few larvae that were found reasonably quickly but the second site now has a light bracken covering. Here numbers of larvae were few and only in those areas still free of bracken. This latter site has in the past produced large numbers of larvae but previous experience has shown that larval numbers are low in amongst bracken even when the underlying grass sward seems unchanged.
All but one of the larvae were still quite small and readily identifiable by the chocolatey coloured underside. A few other larvae were seen included Large Yellow Underwing, Square-spot Rustic and Angle Shades.
Tony