Oh, Deer. The Curse of Many Gardeners.

There are several questions that garden writers get over and over again, and try to answer with varying degrees of success. “How do I keep deer from eating my…?” is the most often, and most plaintively-asked question. You can fill in the blanks as to what they’re eating, depending on the season: rhododendrons, holly, thuja and yew in winter; tulips and crocus in spring; daylilies, hosta, roses, daylilies vegetables, tree and berry fruits, and a host of other tasty options in summer. They’re voracious. And they’re not going away any time soon.

Is there an entomologist in the (blogosphere) house?

So I'm outside this afternoon, walking around psyching myself up for my first post of autumn and determined to take the high moral ground and be cheerful and all that. I'm taking photos for a post about fruits and seeds when something on the red osier dogwood catches my eye.

"Curious," I say to myself. "How on earth did a bird manage to poop on the underside of a leaf?" I look closer and realize it's some sort of caterpillar, resting up after his meal and preparing to moult.

I meet one of his brothers/sisters/siblings, fresh out of its old skin, hungry for more munchies.

Then I discover quite a few more siblings, in various sizes and stages of growth.

They're hungry little suckers, obviously. Fortunately, this is a stand of red osier, and can take some chewed leaves with no problem. So far, anyway.

"Do you MIND? I'm trying to get undressed here!" Ooops. Pardon me, M. Caterpillar.

"Does this dress make me look fat?" Um, no, not at all. Despite how much you've been eating.

Okay, does anyone know who these creatures are, or are going to be? Because I've no idea. I'm guessing they are moths rather than butterflies (don't know why I'm guessing that, other than this is the season for pesky moths elsewhere) and are probably a nuisance. But I could be all wrong about that.

Whatever the case, I'm going to let nature police herself. I see no reason to wage any sort of warfare, biological or otherwise, unless these critters plan to take over. A look around the yard seems to indicate they're host-specific, but again, I really don't know and invite identifications.

These baldfaced wasps don't attack caterpillars, so far as I know, but they fascinate me. So long as they're not being aggressive, that is. I've never been stung by one, probably because I just watch them and let them go about their business.

We have a LOT of garden spiders, and I'm thinking about taking a few of them around to the dogwoods, just in case. Maybe they'll develop a taste for caterpillars to go along with the assorted foolish flies and other critters they've caught. Whatever the case, I'm just going to observe what happens next.

Edited to add: It seems my visitors are the larvae of the dogwood sawfly, Macremphytus tarsatus! I hit Google with a steely glint in my eye, because I love puzzles, and found a photo that looked remarkably like mine. And guess who took it? None other than our friend Nan Ondra at Hayefield. She, of course, had the problem about a month ago, which seems apt because she's about a month ahead of us in terms of plant growth. Nan writes that Btk wouldn't work on these if I did decide I was irked with them, but horticultural oil or insecticidal soap will. I'm going to go with laissez-faire, however, unless they get too pugnacious. Guess I was right about them being host-specific, too.