2018 August 19

    More moth pictures from Metchosin, by Jochen Möhr.   Thanks to Libby Avis for help with the identifications.

Plemyria georgii (Lep.: Geometridae)  Jochen Möhr

Oligia divesta (Lep.: Noctuidae)  Jochen Möhr

Neoalcis californiaria (Lep.: Geometridae)  Jochen Möhr

Alucita montana (Lep.: Alucitidae)  Jochen Möhr

   These moths should be careful not to wander into the Kemp Lake area, where Rosemary Jorna photographed the following fearful creature:

Eratigena duellica (Ara.: Agelenidae)  Rosemary Jorna

2018 August 18

   Sonia Voicescu writes:  I was at Rithet’s Bog on Wednesday (August 15) and I saw the following:

9 Vancouver Island Ringlets (2nd brood of the summer is out and doing well it seems)

3 Cabbage Whites

1 Lorquin’s Admiral

2 Pine Whites

24 Woodland skippers

Ringlet (Large Heath) Coenonympha tullia

(Lep.: Nymphalidae – Satyrinae)

Sonia Voicescu

Woodland Skipper Ochlodes sylvanoides (Lep.: Hesperiidae) Sonia Voicescu

Woodland Skipper Ochlodes sylvanoides (Lep.: Hesperiidae) Sonia Voicescu

   Jeremy Tatum writes:   Cabbages are not the only plants that Cabbage White caterpillars will eat.  Here is one found on Horseradish at King’s Pond, Ascot Drive.  Also there today I saw a Lorquin’s Admiral.

Cabbage White Pieris rapae (Lep.: Pieridae)  Jeremy Tatum

2018 August 17 morning

   Aziza Cooper writes:   On Wednesday August 15, I saw these two moths across from McTavish Park and Ride at the northbound bus shelter along the east side of the Pat Bay Highway.

Silver-spotted Tiger Moth Lophocampa argentata (Lep.: Erebidae – Arctiinae)  Aziza Cooper

Emmelina monodactyla (Lep.: Pterophoridae)  Aziza Cooper

   Interesting way in which the moth is holding its middle pair of legs.  The left one is held closely against the hind leg.  The right one is held closely against the foreleg.  At a casual glance it looks as though it has only four legs.

2018 August 16

[There was no Invert Alert for August 15.]

From Gordon Hart:

Hello Butterfly Counters,

The August count runs nine days from the third Saturday, August 18, to the fourth Sunday, August 26. You can submit a count anytime over this period, and you can do more than one count, just use a separate form for each count. In the case of repeat counts, or more than one person counting an area, I will take the highest count for each species.

Please use the form at https://www.vicnhs.bc.ca/?p=33 on the Victoria Natural History Society website. If you have a zero count, or just one or two butterflies, you can email me directly.

The count area is the same as the Christmas Bird Count circle (attached). For butterfly identification, the Garry Oak Ecosystems Recovery Team (GOERT) has a useful chart of butterflies of southern Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands: http://www.goert.ca/documents/Butterfly_ID_sheet.pdf

If you would like a suggestion for an area to count, please send me an email.

In addition to the counts, a monthly butterfly walk is held on the first Sunday of each month – the next walk will be on September 2. We start at the summit of Mount Tolmie at 1pm, and decide where to go from there. I will send out another reminder near the month-end.

Thank-you for submitting your sightings and happy counting! 

Gordon Hart

Butterfly Count Coordinator

Victoria Natural History Society

Count circle map link:

http://christmasbirdcount.ca/bcvi/CBCMaps.html#VictoriaMap

Jochen Möhr did well last night with his moth trap in Metchosin:

10 Tolype distincta

2 Perizoma curvilinea

2 Neoalcis californiaria

1 Drepanulatrix monicaria

1 Eulithis xylina

1 Nemoria darwiniata

Here are three of the pictures that he obtained.  The first two are Neoalcis californiaria and make an interesting contrast to Thomas Barbin’s dark specimen shown on August 14.  The first of these shown below is fairly typical in this area.  The second is a rather pale or perhaps faded example.  The third photograph, identified by Libby Avis as Caradrina montana, is a new one for this site.

Neoalcis californiaria (Lep.: Geometridae)  Jochen Möhr

Neoalcis californiaria (Lep.: Geometridae)  Jochen Möhr

Caradrina montana (Lep.: Noctuidae)  Jochen Möhr

   Kurtis Herperger sends a photograph of a beetle that came to his moth trap in the Highlands last night.   Thanks to Scott Gilmore for help with the identification as  Trichocnemis spiculatus.

Trichocnemis spiculatus (Col.: Cerambycidae)  Kurtis Herperger

   Rosemary Jorna sends a picture of a female Common Whitetail (which isn’t nearly as common as some of our other dragonflies !), which was cruising in her yard yesterday Aug 15  2018 in the Kemp Lake area.

Common Whitetail Plathemis lydia (Odo.: Libellulidae)  Rosemary Jorna