Yesterday, at a local park, as our mini heatwave had passed and the weather was once again overcast, I was doing a little leaf-bothering, as one of my Twitter friends calls it, and noticed that some small mystery creatures had been munching on the leaves of Spear thistle (Cirsium vulgare). I saw similar leaf damage on several plants but it wasn’t easy turning over the leaves to look for the culprits – my skin kept getting punctured by the vicious spines. Eventually, when I turned this leaf over, a little caterpillar poked its head – or possibly its bottom – out of the cosy little hideaway it had spun for itself to check what was happening, and I managed to get some photos. Turns out this is the caterpillar of the moth Agonopterix arenella, and you can see the adult moth it will eventually develop into on the UK Moths website.