2022 March 28

     Jeremy Tatum writes:  Here is yet another pug.  The moth is pristine fresh, just out of its pupa yesterday, reared from a caterpillar (shown below) found last year in a flower of Rosa nutkana.  One hopes, since the imago is pristine and totally unworn, that it would be easy to identify  – but it looks like so many other undistinguished pugs.  It is the same species as the one shown on March 14.   Rosa is listed as a foodplant for only one Eupithecia species in Klaus Bolte’s  memoir on Canadian pugs, namely  E. maestosa, and this moth is indeed quite a good fit to that species.  But I cannot claim a certain identification.

Eupithecia (possibly maestosa)  (Lep.: Geometridae)

Eupithecia (possibly maestosa)  (Lep.: Geometridae)

   Jochen Möhr sends a picture of the underside of an Emmelina monodactyla perched on the outside of his office window in Metchosin.  The caterpillar of this T-shaped moth is to be found in the flowers of Calystegia.

Emmelina monodactyla (Lep.: Pterophoridae)   Jochen Möhr

  Ann Tiplady sends a photograph of a tiny bee in a Dandelion flower in Oak Bay, March 25.  Jeremy Tatum writes that it may be too small to identify with certainty, but if anyone were to suggest Ceratina sp. he wouldn’t argue.

Possibly Ceratina sp. (Hym.: Apidae)  Ann Tiplady

2022 March 27

    Val George sends a photograph of another moth on the wall of his Oak Bay house, March 26.  Libby Avis and Jeremy Tatum agree that this is Egira curialis.

Egira curialis (Lep.: Noctuidae)   Val George

2022 March 26

   Gordon Hart writes from Highlands:  On Wednesday  March 23, I saw two Green Commas. Yesterday, Friday March 25, I saw several black and white moths, Mesoleuca gratulata, a nice sign of spring, and several species of bumblebee.  I am enclosing a photo of what I think may be a Bombus melanopygus, or Black-tailed Bumblebee. The other bees were B. vosnesenskii, and possibly B. bifarius.  I think the small brownish and white moths, Enchoria lacteata, were flying as well, but I could not find one perched.

Mesoleuca gratulata (Lep.: Geometridae)   Gordon Hart

Bombus melanopygus (Hym.: Apidae)  Gordon Hart

2022 March 25

   Jeremy Tatum writes:  There was a California Tortoiseshell on the Mount Tolmie reservoir at 3:30 this afternoon.  Maybe the same one that was photographed there on March 5?

2022 March 24

    Butterfly!  Since the brief run of butterfly sightings on March 5/6 it has been either cold, or windy, or raining, and we have received no further butterfly reports until today, when Jeff Gaskin reports  a Mourning Cloak near the Goldstream Park nature house this afternoon.

   And Val George reports another pug moth from his Oak Bay house today.  Jeremy Tatum writes: It’s probably Eupithecia ravocostaliata, although we have difficulty distinguishing this species from the similar E. nevadata.

Eupithecia ravocostaliata (Lep.: Geometridae)  Val George