Reblogging The Pale Tussock Moth

/ David Marsden

I’ve never reblogged a post before, never thought much about doing so … until I read the free and very useful WordPress e-book, Grow Your Traffic, Build Your Blog, and decided to follow one of its many tips on all things blogging.  After all, many of you won’t have read my stuff from several years ago.  And for those of you have?  Sorry.

For the first of an occasional delving deep series, I’ve picked my highest viewed post by far.  It is a short piece, under 300 words, from September 2013 about a chance encounter in the garden.  (No, not that sort of encounter).  Thanks to a fairly high Google search ranking, the post has been read almost 11 000 times.  Here’s some context for that figure: my second highest – Viburnum plicatum ‘Mariesii’ – has been read 6 900.

For most of the year, traffic for the following post is fairly negligible but then, during September and October, viewings go through the roof – as people see the creature and Google it.

Here it is:

Pale Tussock Moth

And do let me know if you have seen either the moth or the caterpillar.  But don’t touch the latter.

16 thoughts on “Reblogging The Pale Tussock Moth”

  1. Nowt wrong with reblogging though I take the lazy approach and just stick the occasional link on my home page to something old that’s utterly unrelated to the current post. The conundrum for us readers, though, is whether to comment on the original post or on the reblogging. I encountered my first pale tussock caterpillar on 23 September (I made a note) but I make a rule never to touch anything hairy in the garden so emerged unscathed from the encounter. The caterpillar continued on its way into the shrubbery where, I hope, it found somewhere safe and warm to bed down for the winter. I await the adult’s emergence in spring, probably on a day when I’m nowhere near to see it.

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    • Hi John, I’m grateful for any comments so which ever suits you really. Inserting links is useful and it is surprising how many clicks they can get. The automatic ‘related’ posts which WP adds though can throw up some weird, very old posts though. MIght be time to disable that and add my own choices, I think. So pleased you chose not to stick the catepillar down your y-fronts. D

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  2. Its fascinating how old posts live on if they get a high google search rank. I feel it sad that most of our gems get lost in the archives even though most gardening stuff remains as fresh and relevant as when it was written.
    I blatantly link back to my old posts at the end of each new offering.

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    • Yep, I insert links blatantly too where appropriate and then WP adds three more to the bottom of each new post as well (though sometimes its automatic choice isn’t what I would choose). Perhaps I should disable it and add three of my own chooosing. D

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  3. Hi David, it’s great to see a new post from you, even if it is reblogging. I hadn’t seen your Pale Tussock Moth post, so it is technically new to me 🙂

    I also don’t think I’ve been lucky enough to come across the caterpillar before, but I’ll certainly be on the look out in future! That poor person who ended up with one in their pocket, that’s unfortunate!

    Have you seen more of them since writing in 2013 David?

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    • Hi Kevin, I did think that there’s an awful lot of my posts which people won’t necessarily have seen. Seems I was right! I’ve only seen one caterpillar since I wrote this post and sadly never the adult moth. D

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  4. Thank you for the re post. This is of particular interest as I reared a clutch of eggs left by an unfortunate Pale Tussock in a bowl. Eight developed from tiny caterpillars to quite large ones of different colours from May until October when I released all but one onto a tree, The last one had already made a cocoon and that one became a moth and I have a phone of him/her mating so we made a full circle. This was all photographed for reference. Lyn Cambridge UK

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