THE warm summer has ensured that 2003 will be remembered as a bumper year for butterflies and moths.
As well as being one of the best years for painted lady butterflies, many unusual migrants have arrived in the area.
Mrs Jean Holt from Adlestrop, near Stow, was amazed to discover enormous caterpillars feasting on the leaves of her potato plants.
"They are quite the most amazing creatures," she said. "I have since discovered they are death's head hawk moth caterpillars."
The caterpillars also turned up at Clive Coleman's garden in the Warwickshire village of Stockton. "I could not believe it when I saw them, they were the biggest caterpillars I have ever seen in my life and when I picked them up they started waving their heads and making a clicking noise."
Tim Jenkins at Stratford butterfly farm said the caterpillars are extre-mely rare in Britain. "The caterpillar's mother will have flown all the way from North Africa earlier this summer, tempted by our tropical temperatures this year."
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