Today I went with John to sort out some damage from storm Xynthia. An old and slightly rotten plum tree had been partly brought down in the winds, and the owner wanted the whole thing cut down and into pieces. When we got to the garden, we reversed down the drive to have a bit of privacy when we changed into chainsaw gear, and then had a few problems with central locking and the boot. It was just as well we did - while I was kicking my heels by the back of the car waiting for the right clicking sound, I looked down and screamed - Pine Processionaries!!
They aren't much of an issue yet in the UK, but if you are driving round France and you see white blobs between the size of an elongated tennis ball and a rugby ball on pine trees, you are looking at the nest of the pine processionary. They fester away in these nests through the winter, and keep alive by sucking the sap of the host tree (not good for the tree). Then in the spring, any time in March or April, they march down the tree and find a suitable spot to turn into their next phase and finally very unremarkable moths.
Why the paranoia from me? As a country girl I am used to disgusting things after all (although I am still scared of the four inch long luminous orange slugs in the wood - vicious blood sucking fiends that they are)! Well, if we had had a small child or a dog with us, we would have been in trouble. The spines of the caterpillar fall off at the least provocation and cause anything from mild skin irritation to blindness depending where they hit. There is nothing nice about these creatures and they are not native to the area, so have no predators. And they spread.
Here are some piccies to make your skin crawl.
They aren't luminous orange by the way - we sprayed the main blob once we found them with forestry spray paint in the naive hope that they were settling there and we could come back and spray them or set fire to them - these are the ways of dealing with them on the ground.
But we were foiled as they didn't like the paint so they set off processing - you can see why children find them so fascinating...
And this is why they get their name!
So - if someone like a gardener or a tree surgeon tells you you have pine processionaries, please don't say that it isn't a problem. They are a major hazard - to children, to pets and to people working in your garden. A park in Angers had to be closed after the scouts camping there disturbed some old nests and over a hundred were affected by skin complaints and worse. We had a lot of difficulty working round the problem at our client's garden, and will be back with sprays to deal with what we can. The ideal solution is to cut down the nest in January and burn it in a metal bucket with a bit of petrol. Of course if the nest is inaccessible then you have to resort to things like glue rings, but even an old and empty nest can contain millions of spines and they are what cause the problem.
You are right about the little beasties - I have a definite case of the shivers after looking at your photos!!
Posted by: Anne Donald | 29 March 2010 at 07:12 PM