INVERTEBRATE ALERT
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.

2022 July 15

2022 July 15

 July Butterfly Count

Message from Gordon Hart

 Hello Butterfly Counters,

The July count period starts Saturday July 16 until Sunday July 24. This is an informal census of butterfly numbers and species in Greater Victoria. The area is defined by the Christmas Bird Count circle, extending from Victoria to Brentwood Bay and Island View Road in Central Saanich, and west to Happy Valley and Triangle Mountain, and Langford Lake and Goldstream areas.

You can submit a count any time over the count period, just use a separate form for each count and location. In the case of repeat or duplicate counts, I will use the higher numbers. To submit counts, please use the form from the VNHS website at

https://www.vicnhs.bc.ca/?p=33

If you have difficulty with the form, just send me an email with the information.

Thank-you for submitting your sightings and good luck with your count.

Gordon

 

Gordon Hart,

Butterfly Count Coordinator,

Victoria Natural History Society

 

 

  Kirsten Grove-White sends a photograph of one of our native emerald moths, Nemoria unitaria from the Swan Lake Nature House today:

 

Nemoria unitaria (Lep.: Geometridae)  Kirsten Grove-White

   [Jeremy Tatum writes:  I had initially mislabelled the above moth as N. darwiniata, and I am grateful to Libby Avis for the correction.  Libby writes:  No red markings on the body and the lower line on the hindwing starts to curve upward just before it reaches the body, whereas in darwiniata the line goes straight across to the body.]

Jochen Möhr writes from his property in Metchosin:  It looks as though the tent caterpillars – of which I counted at one time 19 colonies in the vegetation around this house – are finally ecloding.  This morning, there were five of them on the floor of the deck under the black light.  Jeremy Tatum writes:  I believe that all three of the moths below are females.

 

Malacosoma californicum (Lep.:  Lasiocampidae)  Jochen Möhr

Malacosoma californicum (Lep.:  Lasiocampidae)  Jochen Möhr

 

Jeremy Tatum sends photographs of two very young caterpillars.  The first one is from Mahonia at Swan Lake; the second from Urtica at Blenkinsop Lake.

 

Rusty Tussock or Vapourer Moth  Orgyia antiqua (Lep.: Erebidae – Lymantriinae)

  Jeremy Tatum

Red Admiral Vanessa atalanta (Lep.: Nymphalidae)  Jeremy Tatum