{"id":13602,"date":"2021-03-28T10:23:36","date_gmt":"2021-03-28T17:23:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.vicnhs.bc.ca\/?p=13602"},"modified":"2021-03-29T16:56:13","modified_gmt":"2021-03-29T23:56:13","slug":"march-28-morning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vicnhs.bc.ca\/?p=13602","title":{"rendered":"March 28"},"content":{"rendered":"
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2021 March 28<\/strong><\/p>\n

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\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong>So called “pussy willow” catkins at this time of year are good places to see nectar-seeking insects.\u00a0 Rosemary Jorna sends a March 25 photograph of a pussy willow twig from near Parkinson Creek on the Juan de Fuca Marine Trail, with a variety of flies and bees on it.\u00a0 The most obvious fly, on the right just below centre, is a tachinid.\u00a0 I see two more tachinids, and at least one bee.\u00a0 It is often exciting to go out at night with a strong flashlight to see moths nectaring at pussy willows catkins.<\/p>\n

In addition to these flies at Parkington Creek on March 25, Rosemary also saw a Mourning Cloak <\/strong>butterfly there.<\/p>\n

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“Pussy willow” catkins with flies and bee\u00a0\u00a0 Rosemary Jorna<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0 Shown below are two images of a tachinid fly.\u00a0 Tachinid maggots develop inside other insects, such as the caterpillars of butterflies and moths.\u00a0 Many adult tachinids can be recognized as such by their bristly abdomens.<\/p>\n

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Tachinid fly (Dip.: Tachinidae)\u00a0\u00a0 Rosemary Jorna<\/p>\n

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Tachinid fly (Dip.: Tachinidae)\u00a0\u00a0 Rosemary Jorna<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0 I have to admit, continues Jeremy, that flies are not among my favorite insects, tachinids in particular being rather low down in the scale of insects that I find attractive.\u00a0 Syrphid flies (known as hover flies or flower flies) are exceptional, and I think I am not alone in finding some of them to be quite attractive as flies go.\u00a0 Below is a syrphid, paying attention to its personal hygiene, keeping its eyes clean.\u00a0 It was a dead heat between Jeremy Gatten and Jeff Skevington, both of whom immediately identified it as Sericomya chalcopyga<\/em><\/strong>.\u00a0<\/em> Jeremy G even came up with an English name:\u00a0 Western Pond Fly.<\/p>\n

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Sericomyia chalcopyga<\/em> (Dip.: Syrphidae)\u00a0\u00a0 Rosemary Jorna<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0 And here is another dipteran, photographed by Ian Cooper.\u00a0 It stumped me, writes Jeremy Tatum, but we thank Dr Rob Cannings for confirming Ian’s original identification as a non-biting midge of the Family Chironomidae.\u00a0 Males often have elaborate plumed antennae;\u00a0 this one is a female.<\/p>\n

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Female non-biting midge (Dip.: Chironomidae)\u00a0 Ian Cooper<\/p>\n

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Female non-biting midge (Dip.: Chironomidae)\u00a0 Ian Cooper<\/p>\n

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Jeremy Tatum writes:\u00a0 Egira crucialis <\/em>and E. simplex <\/em>\u00a0are two moths of springtime that are often quite difficult to distinguish.\u00a0 However, although the adults are confusingly similar, the final instar caterpillars are very different.\u00a0 The moth below emerged from its pupa this morning, and since it was reared from a caterpillar (feeding on Ocean Spray), we have no doubt that it is Egira crucialis<\/em><\/strong>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Egira crucialis <\/em>(Lep.: Noctuidae)\u00a0\u00a0 Jeremy Tatum<\/p>\n

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2021 March 28 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 So called “pussy willow” catkins at this time of year are good places to see nectar-seeking insects.\u00a0 Rosemary Jorna sends a March 25 photograph of a pussy willow twig from near Parkinson Creek on the Juan de Fuca Marine Trail, with a variety of flies and bees on it.\u00a0 The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-invertebrate-alert"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicnhs.bc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicnhs.bc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicnhs.bc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicnhs.bc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicnhs.bc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13602"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicnhs.bc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13602\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13619,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicnhs.bc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13602\/revisions\/13619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicnhs.bc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicnhs.bc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicnhs.bc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}