If you have anything to do with textiles you will know that a ‘sheer’ is a fabric that is almost see through.  I work with them a lot, in fact I dye them too, and here are some to show you what I mean.

This photograph shows how the different layers create more colours when they are placed over each other.  I’m used to seeing sheers in the un-natural world, but the ones I saw yesterday in the natural world took me totally by surprise.

This sheer is more dense than a spider’s web, but much more invasive.  It arrived overnight, and covered two entire trees.  I think it will be even more spectacular today, so if you are in the Tredegar House area of Newport you need to go and have a look.  The veil was encroaching onto the ground, and it looked rather like the advance of aliens

Closer inspection reavealed an enormous number of caterpillars (very hungry caterpillars as they had totally stripped both trees) of the Ermine Moth.

Apparently there is a video on YouTube showing a visitation in a churchyard, but I haven’t looked for it, I’ll leave that to you.  Even the bark was covered

and I have to say that it was all strangely beautiful and I wish I’d had time to investigate further, however, it was back to teaching asap.  More about that here.  Enjoy