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A real plague of gypsy moth caterpillars hit our area in the summer of 2020. During June the land everywhere was covered by pieces of hardwood leaves and green pine needles. Some trees were being decimated.

By July the caterpillars had metamorphosed into moths. The air was full of brown, male gypsy moths fluttering apparently randomly around, though in fact they were probably in search of the smell of the females.

The white coloured females cannot fly and were found crawling to find a suitable place to lay eggs. Soon there there tan coloured furry mats of eggs all over the place in protected spots on trees or any other surface.

The late spring of 2021 started looking like the invasion would be even worse. Caterpillars were falling from the trees, or dangling on a thread and were even parachuting on their threads in the middle of the lake. It appeared though that the infestation was peaking as more and more caterpillars were dying (from bacterial or fungal infections). The trees however had taken a significant defoliation hit.