I noticed a day or two ago that an oak sapling in my garden was looking
a bit threadbare. This morning I had a good look. The leaves at the top
had been eaten away and, round the trunk a little lower down, were a
couple of dozen caterpillars all huddled together. They were yellow and
black striped, rather like a wasp (which is what I thought they were at
a distance!) and about an inch and a half long.

My wife said that they were the processionary caterpillar but when I
googled for them all that came up was the pine processionary caterpillar
which seemed quite different in colour. Anyway we took the precaution of
not handling them (there are severe warnings about what their hairs can
do) and knocked them off into a shovel and put them on our bonfire.

I didn't think to take a photo of them before we destroyed them.

Can anyone shed any light on what these were?

David

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David Rance writing from Le Mesnil Villement, Calvados, France