2015 October 11

   Jeremy Gatten writes:  Still lots on the wing surprisingly enough.  My favourite of the lot was this one: Ceranemota fasciata.  This was taken in Metchosin at Hans Helgesen Elementary School (lots more there, but most are high up on walls) on October 10th.  I have probably six Orthosia mys at my place in Saanichton, plus a couple of Mythimna unipuncta and one Pleromelloida cinerea.  I still have to sort through the geometrids, but it looks like a couple of species of Euchlaena and also Maple Spanworms Ennomos magnaria.  Hans Helgesen had two other native noctuids: Sunira decipiens and possibly Lacinipolia patalis.

Ceranemota fasciata (Lep.: Drepanidae – Thyatirinae)  Jeremy Gatten

  Jeremy Tatum writes:  I’ve had no moths at my Saanich apartment recently, and I was excited to learn what Libby and Scott and Jeremy G have been seeing in their more rural surroundings.  So I went to Swan Lake to see if there was anything there around the lights of the Nature House.  I found just one moth, but a nice one to find –Tetracis jubararia.  Unfortunately in a corner where I couldn’t get a camera.  

2015 October 11

   A bug and two ladybird beetles from Jeremy Tatum’s Saanich apartment yesterday and today.  Thanks to Scott Gilmore for identifying the beetle as the Multicoloured Asian Ladybird Beetle.  [I have heard so many English names for this Asian species that I call it the Many-named Ladybird!.]

Western Conifer Seed Bug  Leptoglossus occidentalis (Hem.: Coreidae)  Jeremy Tatum

Multicoloured Asian Ladybird Harmonia axyridis (Col.: Coccinellidae)  Jeremy Tatum

Multicoloured Asian Ladybird Harmonia axyridis (Col.: Coccinellidae)  Jeremy Tatum

 Libby Avis sends some nice pictures from Port Alberni, October 7 and 8.

Ceranemota fasciata (Lep.: Drepanidae – Thyatirinae)  Libby Avis

Orthosia mys (Lep.: Noctuidae)  Libby Avis

Agrotis ipsilon (Lep.: Noctuidae)  Libby Avis

Hemichroa crocea (Hym.: Tenthredinidae)  Libby Avis

   Jeremy Tatum writes:  I saw a Cabbage White flying at Maber Flats today (October 11).  Also there were lots of Banded Woolly Bears – and a distressing number seemed to have been stomped on – more that one would expect from random accident.

   Scott Gilmore writes from Upper Lantzville:  It was nice to find a Maple Spanworm (Ennomos magnaria) just outside our backdoor today. Jeremy Tatum comments:  Lovely moth!  I hadn’t heard the common name “Maple Spanworm” before – but apparently that is the name used in forestry circles.  I wonder if the caterpillar actually eats maples?  The only macro moth caterpillar I have ever found on maple is the Winter Moth.  E. magnaria is usually on willow.

Maple Spanworm Ennomos magnaria (Lep.: Geometridae)  Scott Gilmore

2015 October 9

   Kelly Whitnack sends a picture of a fearsome spider from Sooke.  Thanks to Robb Bennett for identifying it as a mygalomorph (that’s a Suborder of spiders), a male burrowing “folding door” spider, Antrodiaetus pacificus.  Robb also says that it may be awesome, but not fearsome.  We leave viewers to decide for themselves.

Antrodiaetus pacificus (Ara.: Antrodiaetidae)  Kelly Whitnack

    Jeremy Tatum writes:  The butterfly season may be almost over – but not quite.  While visiting Gordon Hart’s Highlands garden yesterday I found the Cabbage White caterpillar shown below on Gordon’s prize broccolis.

Pieris rapae (Lep.: Pieridae)  Jeremy Tatum

  Gordon Hart writes:  Anne-Marie found a small slug eating holes in the sour cherry leaves. I have attached a picture since we were wondering if it was a species of small slug, or is just a smaller stage of a large slug? It reminds me of a leech.  Jeremy Tatum replies:  Not a slug! Not a leech!  It is amazing, but this is the larva of a sawfly!   I think we can just make out Anne-Marie in the reflection!

Eriocampoides limacina (Hym.: Tenthredinidae)  Gordon/Anne-Marie Hart

Eriocampoides limacina (Hym.: Tenthredinidae)  Gordon/Anne-Marie Hart

2015 October 5

    Gordon Hart sends a picture of a rather unkempt-looking Yellow Woolly Bear from his Highlands yard.  It has since started to make a cocoon. He also sends a picture of one of two Cabbage Whites from Fort Rodd Hill.

Yellow Woolly Bear Spilosoma virginica (Lep.: Erebidae – Arctiinae)  Gordon Hart

Cabbage White Pieris rapae (Lep.: Pieridae)   Gordon Hart.

   Jeremy Tatum writes:  Halfway down the east slope of Mount Tolmie there is a huge mass of flowering Ivy, in full bloom now.  You can smell it (a pleasant smell) from quite a way off.  I know that English Ivy is not everyone’s favorite plant, but the blossoms are attracting large numbers of interesting bees, wasps and flies; and today, at about 4:00 p.m., there were 2 Red Admirals there.  I stayed there for 40 minutes just watching them – I could barely tear myself away, they were so beautiful.

2015 October 4

October Butterfly Walk.  In spite of tempting competing attractions, such as a Black-throated Sparrow and a Cattle Egret, five butterfly enthusiasts turned up to see if they could find a last few butterflies before the onset of S.A.D.  The party was Gail Chacter, Gordon Hart, Agnes Lynn, Helen Oldershaw and Jeremy Tatum.  At Agnes’s suggestion, we decided to try the Horticultural Centre of the Pacific – Agnes had free passes for everyone!  On the way there, some of the party saw a Cabbage White along busy Quadra Street.  When we got to the HCP it was hot, calm and sunny, seemingly ideal for butterflies – but for a while none were to be found.  Most of us contented ourselves with looking at the flowers while pretending to be looking for butterflies, and a few even took a sneak look at one or two birds.  But after a while another Cabbage White appeared, and then another, and thick and fast they came at last (Lewis Carroll).  In the end I think there were about nine Cabbage Whites, not including the Quadra Street one.  All of us had an enjoyable afternoon.

   Many thanks to Scott Gilmore for pointing out that the colourful bee/wasp shown on the September 29 posting is a sweat bee (Halictidae) of the genus Agapostemon, not as I had originally labelled it, a chrysidid wasp.

   Annie Pang sends a photograph of a fly from Gorge Park on October 3.  Hard to identify it with certainty, but it is probably an anthomyiid, though possibly a muscid.

Fly (Dip.:  Anthomyiidae/Muscidae)  Annie Pang

   Mike Yip sends a photograph from Nanoose of a pupa of Cerisy’s Eyed Hawk Moth.

Cerisy’s Eyed Hawk Moth Smerinthus cerisyi (Lep.: Sphingidae)   Mike Yip