2023 April 7

   Jochen Möhr seems to have solved the problem of how to distinguish between Eupithecia nevadata  and E. ravocostaliata – by photographing one of each at his Metchosin home last night!  Look at the shape of the dark mid-costal patch – triangular in nevadata and a thin rectangle in ravocostaliata.   Klaus Bolte, in his monograph on Canadian pugs, also mentions that the shade of brown in the two species is different.  Difficult to describe in words, but quite evident in Jochen’s photographs.

Eupithecia nevadata   (Lep.: Geometridae)  Jochen Möhr

Eupithecia ravocostaliata   (Lep.: Geometridae)  Jochen Möhr

   Jochen also photographed an Emmelina monodactyla:

Emmelina monodactyla  (Lep.: Pterophoridae)  Jochen Möhr

   Val George photographed an Oak Winter Highflyer that was was on the wall of his Oak Bay house this morning, April 7:

Hydriomena nubilofasciata  (Lep.: Geometridae)  Val George

      Jeff Gaskin saw his first of the year Cabbage White today, April 07, in Helmcken Centennial Park.

2023 April 6

   Jochen Möhr sends photographs from Metchosin from the last couple of nights.  It is often difficult to distinguish between Eupithecia ravocostaliata and E. nevadata.   The mid-costal dark patch is supposed to be rectangular in the former and triangular in the latter.  The difficulty is that this patch is often somewhat ill-defined in shape and it is difficult to say whether it is more nearly triangular or more nearly rectangular.  The patch looks unambiguously triangular in this one, so we feel fairly confident in labelling it Eupithecia nevadata.

Eupithecia nevadata (Lep.: Geometridae)   JochenMöhr

Hypena californica  (Lep.: Erebidae – Hypeninae) Jochen Möhr

Alucita montana  (Lep.: Alucitidae) Jochen Möhr

2023 April 4

    Aziza Cooper sends a photograph of a small moth seen on April 3, on a hilltop in Sooke Hills Wilderness Regional Park.  We don’t know what it is – probably a crambid or a pyralid.  Suggestions welcome!

Unidentified moth.  Aziza Cooper

2023 April 1

   No Butterfly Walk Tomorrow.  The first Butterfly Walk of the year will be on the first Sunday in May.

   Barb McGrenere writes:  On March 30, Mike and I saw our first Mourning Cloak of the season perched on the white flowers of a cherry tree along the Lochside Trail north of Blenkinsop Lake.

   Jeremy Tatum posts a photograph of Egira crucialis. The moth, which ecloded (emerged) today, was reared from a caterpillar found last year, and its identity is therefore not in doubt.  This suggests strongly that the two moths shown on March 29 are also E. crucialis as labelled.

Egira crucialis (Lep.: Noctuidae)  Jeremy Tatum

   On the same day that Gordon Hart (March 28) photographed the bee Bombus melanopygus in his Highlands garden (see March 29 posting), Gordon also photographed there another somewhat similar bee.  We thank Steven Roias for confirming its identification as B. vancouverensis.

Bombus vancouverensis  (Hym.: Apidae)  Gordon Hart

2023 March 30

   Jeremy Tatum reports seeing a Cabbage White this morning on Poplar Avenue, Saanich.   He shows a photograph of a caterpillar of Paraseptis adnixa from near Blenkinsop Lake.

Paraseptis adnixa  (Lep.: Noctuidae)  Jeremy Tatum

Jochen Möhr sends photographs of moths from his Metchosin home in the last two nights.

   Triphosa haesitata (Lep.: Geometridae)   Jochen Möhr

Triphosa haesitata (Lep.: Geometridae)   Jochen Möhr

Nola minna  (Lep.: Nolidae)  Jochen Möhr

Agonopterix  (probably argillacea) (Lep.:  Depressariidae)  Jochen Möhr