2015 May 10

   Bill Katz writes: I found a West Coast Lady, my first, flying lazily about the Cedar Hill Cross Road entrance of Finnerty Gardens on Sunday morning, May 10.  I photographed my first ever Red Admiral this afternoon in our garden at Spencer Castle on Summit Hill.

Red Admiral Vanessa atalanta (Lep.: Nymphalidae) Bill Katz

   Bill continues: I found a Eupithecia rotundopuncta,and the second moth shown below, in Haro Woods.  I also saw a faded Udea profundalis, my first of 2015.

Eupithecia rotundopuncta (Lep.: Geometridae) Bill Katz

2015 May 9

   It must have needed some patience, but Val George managed to get a great photo of the West Coast Lady that was on the Mount Tolmie reservoir yesterday.  I believe this is only the second photo of a West Coast Lady that we have had on this Invert site since we started it in 2010, the previous one being in 2013.  We are trying to recover all the archived Invert Alerts, and hope to get them up again sometime.

   Jeremy Tatum writes:  I was pottering around in various locations in Central Saanich today, and I saw one or two of each of Painted Lady, Mourning Cloak, Red Admiral and  Satyr Comma.    I met Jeremy Gatten there, and he, too, had seen the same species.

    Jeff Gaskin writes: There was a Western Brown Elfin along Gorge Road East near Harriet Road and this was a first of the year for me.

2015 May 8

    Scott Gilmore writes from Upper Lantzville: 

I found a Cabbage Seedpod Weevil Ceutorhynchus obstrictus in the garden yesterday on flowering Kale. Another European species.

Ceutorhynchus obstrictus (Col.: Curculionidae) Scott Gilmore

   Jeremy Tatum writes: I visited Mount Tolmie today (May 8) at about 2:00 pm and I didn’t see any butterflies at all, either on the reservoir or on the way up.  At 4:30 pm, however, it was a totally different story.  Sunning themselves on the reservoir were two Painted Ladies, a West Coast Lady and a Mourning Cloak, while a few Propertius Duskywings and Western Spring Azures and at least one Western Tiger Swallowtail were flying around nearby. I didn’t see a Red Admiral there, but there was one earlier in the day on Lochside Drive between Lohbrunner’s and Blenkinsop Lake, which seemed to be taking some interest in a nettle patch.

2015 May 7

   Jeremy Tatum sends a photo of a Spotted Tiger Moth Lophocampa maculata that was at his Saanich apartment this morning.

Spotted Tiger Moth Lophocampa maculata (Lep.: Erebidae – Arctiidae) Jeremy Tatum

   At 4:00 pm this afternoon (May 7) there were a Red Admiral, two Painted Ladies and a West Coast Lady on the Mount Tolmie reservoir.