By clearing away weeds and only having one species like cabbage in a bed, we are providing an easy to find banquet for things like white butterflies and cabbage root flies. However, while out walking at the weekend, I started to pay attention to wild plants and they too fall victim to things like black spot and slug damage, so it did make me feel a little better.

Sometimes, so-called pest species really go over the top and cause havoc to some wild plants. I came upon a particularly spectacular example on a bird cherry tree by the riverside. The whole tree was draped in a white floss-like cotton wool and its leaves were disappearing fast. Inside these fluffy shelters were hundreds of tiny caterpillars, chomping their way through the foliage. These were the larvae of the bird cherry ermine moth and are quite a common sight in our area at this time of year.

They can completely defoliate a tree inside their protective tents which keep them safe from birds, but the tree doesn’t seem to suffer any long-term effects and will be back in leaf the following year.

Some adult members of the small ermines are difficult to separate visually, but this species is one of the easiest, having five rows of black dots on the forewing

Such infestations can be quite spectacular and feature almost annually in the correspondence to this column. (They have even featured on “Springwatch” this year)

Cuckoos continue to be reported by readers and I had a call from a very excited Innerleithen lady who had just seen two cuckoos up the Leithen Water. They were obviously a pair as one was cuckooing and the other was giving off a bubbling chuckle. The latter was the female as they don’t make the classic call given by the male. Thank you also to D.L. who heard one on June 4 between Lauder and Westruther.

Since I first asked for records, I have had around 13 reports from across our area, from a wide spread of locations. Obviously, many will have gone unreported. Ten years ago, the estimated population in the Borders was between 350 and 500 pairs, so it will be interesting to find out what the most recent breeding bird survey reveals, in due course. At least through your records, we know that they are still hanging on. Incidentally, did you know that the name Penicuik comes from “hill of the cuckoo” in ancient Cumbric. Well now you know!