2019 October 22

 

   Jeremy Tatum writes:  In an effort to stave off Seasonal Affective Disorder for as long as possible, I was glad to see a butterfly today.  The last of the year, perhaps?  – or can someone stretch the season out a little further?  I saw a Painted Lady on the big flowering Ivy patch on Mount Tolmie.  I know that English Ivy is not the botanists’ favorite plant, but at this time of year, if it is flowering, it is very attractive to butterflies, bees, wasps, syrphid flies, etc.  There are several big patches of flowering Ivy in the Victoria area.  To find the one on Mount Tolmie, enter Mount Tolmie from the end of Rattenbury Place.  Turn right just before the big patch of Pampas Grass, and go up the stairs.  As soon as you are at the top of the stairs you are at the Ivy patch.  I bet if you went there after dark with a flashlight you’d see lots of moths.

 

  Jochen Möhr’s moths from Metchosin this morning:

 

2 Agrochola purpurea

1 Dryotype opina 

2 Epirrita autumnata

3 Sunira decipiens

1 dilapidated Xanthorhoe defensaria

 

Epirrita autumnata  (Lep.: Geometridae)  Jochen Möhr

 

Epirrita autumnata  (Lep.: Geometridae)  Jochen Möhr

 

Dryotype opina (Lep.: Noctuidae)  Jochen Möhr

 

Agrochola purpurea  (Lep.: Noctuidae)  Jochen Möhr