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

2019 October 21

   Jochen Möhr’s moths from Metchosin yesterday morning:

1 Drepanulatrix sp.

1 Dryotype opina

1 Hypena californica 

7 Sunira sp.

and from this morning:

2 Agrochola purpurea

1 Epirrita autumnata

4 Sunira decipiens

2 Sunira verberata

1 Tetracis sp.

Sunira decipiens/Sunira verberata   is another of these very difficult pairs.  We  (Libby Avis, Jochen Möhr, Jeremy Tatum) believe (hope?!) that the two Sunira  species below are labelled correctly.   And we also show the somewhat similar Agrochola purpurea.  Jochen photographed all three species on the same night, to  make a good comparison.

Agrochola purpurea Lep.: Noctuidae)  Jochen Möhr

Sunira verberata (Lep.: Noctuidae)  Jochen Möhr

Sunira decipiens (Lep.: Noctuidae)  Jochen Möhr

Dryotype opina (Lep.: Noctuidae)  Jochen Möhr

Tetracis jubararia/pallulata  (Lep.: Geometridae)  Jochen Möhr

Epirrita autumnata  (Lep.: Geometridae)  Jochen Möhr

2019 October 18

   Jeremy Tatum writes:  I found this spider in my bedroom this morning. This species is one of several creatures, including harvestmen and crane flies, that are known, in different parts of the world, as “daddy-long-legs”.

Pholcus phalangioides (Ara.: Pholcidae)  Jeremy Tatum

Pholcus phalangioides (Ara.: Pholcidae)  Jeremy Tatum

2019 October 16

    Jeff Gaskin writes:  Today, Oct 16  I saw a Cabbage White in the Gorge Park community garden.  Also, if you look on eBird for Oct. 13, 8:40 ,  I believe ,  Randy Dzenkiw saw a Painted Lady at Whiffin Spit on that day.

   Jochen Möhr’s moths from Metchosin this morning.    Tetracis jubararia/pallulata  and Drepanulatrix secundaria/monicaria  are two pairs that can be very difficult to separate, because the variation within a species seems to be greater than the difference between them, and a lot also depends on state of wear.  Viewers, I hope, will forgive us if we don’t always identify them to species.  The Tetracis shown on October 6 is guaranteed jubararia – it was reared from caterpillar on Snowberry.   T. pallulata is a conifer feeder.

Tetracis jubararia/pallulata (Lep.: Geometridae)  Jochen Möhr

Tetracis jubararia/pallulata (Lep.: Geometridae)  Jochen Möhr

Drepanulatrix secundaria/monicaria  (Lep.: Geometridae)  Jochen  Möhr

Eupithecia tripunctaria (Lep.: Geometridae)

Sunira decipiens (Lep.: Noctuidae)

Drepanulatrix secundaria/monicaria  (Lep.: Geometridae)

Jochen Möhr

   Mr E found this spider inside a residence on Prospect Lake Road on October 15:

Steatoda grossa (Ara.: Theridiidae)  Mr E

Steatoda grossa (Ara.: Theridiidae)  Mr E

Steatoda grossa (Ara.: Theridiidae)  Mr E

   Jody Wells forwards a photograph from C.D. Mazoff of a tick on the face of a Brewer’s Blackbird.  We cannot tell from the photograph exactly which species of tick it is.  In a recent paper, seven species of tick were recorded from passerine birds in Canada – six of them from the genus Ixodes, and one from Haemaphysalis.   The tick will probably drop off when it is engorged.

Tick  (Ixo.: Ixodidae) and Brewer’s Blackbird 

Euphagus cyanocephalus (Pas.: Icteridae)   C.D.Mazoff

2019 October 15

   Mr E sends photographs of two small insects from Port Renfrew:

Toxomerus geminatus (Dip.: Syrphidae)  Mr E

Hymenoptera.  Probably Chalcidoidea.  Possibly Eulophidae.    Mr E

Hymenoptera.  Probably Chalcidoidea.  Possibly Eulophidae.    Mr E