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.

August 8

2015 August 08

 

   Jeremy Tatum writes:  I went to the top of Christmas Hill at 7:00 pm on August 7 to see if there were any hill-topping nymphalids.  I scored 2 Red Admirals and a Painted Lady.

 

   Val George writes:  Butterflies at Island View Beach and Saanichton (Cordova) Spit yesterday, August 7:  5 Coenonympha tullia (Ringlet or Large Heath), 3 Purplish Coppers, 1 Essex Skipper, c. two dozen Woodland Skippers (but no Branded Skippers).

 

  Gerry and Wendy Ansell write: This afternoon (Friday August 7) we went to Cordova Spit to look for the Western Branded Skippers.  I found only 1 (that I was able to photograph) but quite a few Woodland Skippers.  We also got 1 female Purplish Copper and a Cabbage White.  I also saw the attached grasshopper, but I’m not sure what it is.  Any ideas?  It was quite small.  As you can see it fits in the centre of a flower.

 

Female Purplish Copper Lycaena helloides (Lep.: Lycaenidae)  Val George

 

Large Heath (“Ringlet”) Coenonympha tullia

(Lep.: Nymphalidae – Satyrinae)

Val George

 

Grasshopper (Orth.: Acrididae)  Wendy Ansell

 

 

   Aziza Cooper writes:  The bee is from the blackberries at Haliburton Farm yesterday (August 7). I’ve never seen a bee with pink pollen before.  [Can someone out there identify it for us?  The bee or the pollen will do!]

 

   The Red Admiral was on Moss Rock on Thursday evening.

 

Bee Bombus sp. (Hym.: Apidae)   Aziza Cooper

 

Red Admiral Vanessa atalanta (Lep.: Nymphalidae)   Aziza Cooper