In early January I went on an early morning frosty picture walk around our property, and I was delighted to find this Oak leaf stuck in a frosted spider web! Upon closer investigation, however, I realized this was not a spider web. It was a web made by a "fall webworm." These nasty little creatures hatch from eggs placed on the undersides of leaves by adult webworm moths during the summer. In the fall, they hatch and eat the leaf they hatched on. The problem this last year is that this area of the country was overrun by a record number webworms and they have devastated thousands of trees. Affected trees usually survive webworm infestations, but not this time. This Madrone tree (only a branch is shown--the leaf you see is from an Oak tree), and about a dozen more on our property, has died. :( :(

If you would like to learn more about webworm moths and their habits, here is a Wiki page: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_webworm

If you would like to see pictures of trees covered with webworms, here is a very good page: www.bugoftheweek.com/bow-reader.jsp?document_name=/wt/bug...