This blog provides an informal forum for terrestrial invertebrate watchers to post recent sightings of interesting observations in the southern Vancouver Island region. Please send your sightings by email to Jeremy Tatum (tatumjb352@gmail.com). Be sure to include your name, phone number, the species name (common or scientific) of the invertebrate you saw, location, date, and number of individuals. If you have a photograph you are willing to share, please send it along. Click on the title above for an index of past sightings.The index is updated most days.

2023 March 24

2023 March 24

 

 

   Aziza Cooper and Jeremy Tatum each send photographs of a small moth from their Saanich homes:

 

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Alucita montana  (Lep.: Alucitidae)    Aziza Cooper

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Eupithecia annulata  (Lep.:  Geometridae) Jeremy Tatum

2023 March 22

2023 March 22

 

   Ron Flower saw five (5!) Mourning Cloaks at the Goldstream River today. March 22, and Jeremy Tatum saw a California Tortoiseshell basking on the Mount Tolmie reservoir (presumably the same individual that was seen there on March 18).

 

 


2023 March 21

2023 March 21

 

 

Jochen Möhr photographed three moths in Metchosin last night:

 

 

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Hydriomena nubilofasciata  (Lep.: Geometridae)    Jochen Möhr

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Eupithecia ravocostaliata  (Lep.: Geometridae)    Jochen Möhr

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Venusia sp.  (Lep.: Geometridae)     Jochen Möhr

   Jeremy Tatum found a third instar caterpillar on Oemleria cerasiformis at UVic this
morning:

 

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Paraseptis adnixa  (Lep:  Noctuidae)   Jeremy Tatum

2023 March 20

2023 March 20

 

Spring started at 2:24 pm PDT

 

Gordon Hart photographed this fly in the Highlands on March 18.   Thanks to Dr Jeff Skevington for identifying it as Brachypalpus sp.

 

 

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Brachypalpus sp. (Dip.: Syrphidae)   Gordon Hart

   Jeff Gaskin tells us that Lynda Dowling saw a Satyr Comma at her herb farm on Happy Valley Road, March 18.

2023 March 19

2023 March 19

 

   More Butterflies!

 

 Mark Wynja writes:

Three Mourning Cloaks and one Hoary Comma seen yesterday March 18, on the logging road on the west side of Okay Mountain (access from the Northwest Bay Logging roads), Nanoose.   Temperature 13-15 C at an elevation of 300 m
with patches of snow still present along the roadside.

 

 

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Hoary Comma Polygonia gracilis (Lep.: Nymphalidae)      Mark Wynja

   Gordon Hart saw three Mourning Cloaks, as well as the moth Enchoria lacteata nectaring at a Snowdrop,in his Highlands garden, March 18.

 

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Mourning Cloak Nymphalis antiopa (Lep.: Nymphalidae)   Gordon Hart

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Enchoria lacteata  (Lep.: Geometridae)   Gordon Hart

   Jeremy Tatum photographed a woodling moth on the wall of his Saanich apartment building this morning,  March 19.

 

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Egira curialis (Lep.: Noctuidae)  Jeremy Tatum