Up Close with Ontario's 2021 Gypsy Moth Explosion

2021 has seen one of the largest incidences of gypsy moths in Ontario in recent memory, eclipsing last year's gypsy moth bonanza. They're eating foliage.* They're "everywhere", causing "the worst infestation since the eighties". In a particularly scathing assessment, the Ottawa Citizen called gypsy moths, their caterpillars and their eggs "a cataclysmic insult".

Gypsy moth caterpillars "literally rain down out of the sky". 

They sure rained on me in the North Kawarthas earlier this month:

They crawled on my skin only briefly, so I didn't suffer any gypsy moth rash. They were actually kind of cute, as they periodically rear their front legs like tiny horses. Besides, who can resist something so small and fuzzy?**

Nonetheless, a pest is a pest, and a generally anti-pesticide person except when it's absolutely necessary, I thought: do any birds eat these critters?

The answer is that yes, they do, including some of Ontario's most iconic bird species. According to this Michigan State University bulletin from all the way back in April 1999:

Many birds do not like to feed on large, hairy gypsy moth caterpillars, but other species seem to relish them! Yellow-billed and black-billed cuckoos, blue jays, orioles and rufous-sided towhees are among the species that feed on gypsy moth caterpillars. Some birds, such as the black-capped chickadee, will also feed on egg masses and can sometimes cause substantial egg mortality.

Here's a closeup I snapped of a chickadee last October:

Either this one, or a similar chickadee, was so friendly it landed on my shoe - while it was on my foot. It was unfortunately too quick for me to get a picture, but these adorable chickadees apparently consider Eastern Ontario so familiar they're willing to land on its human inhabitants.

I've seen more blue jays farther south (in Toronto - how fitting), so it'd be nice to see them up in cottage country. I can't recall the last time I saw a cuckoo, a towhee or an oriole, but they'd be welcome.

One final issue: Terry McGlynn, the ecologist and conservationist who named the completely unrelated gypsy ants, regrets using the racist term "gypsy". In the interest of naming things, let's rename gypsy moths! Here are a few fun ideas:

• Destroyer moth, based on its Latin name Lymantria dispar
• Day moth or Sun moth, based on the fact that it is unusually diurnal
• Striped tree moth, based on its jagged stripe markings

I'm open to more ideas and fewer moths. Let's cross our fingers for an increase in the presence of local avians.

*I don't usually toot my own horn, but here, I must: my pictures are better than these Canadian Press pictures. Matthew Gordon, Ontario's new nature photographer?

**Remember Weepuls? Gypsy moth caterpillars are like living, elongated Weepuls.