2021 June 1

 

   Val George writes:  I saw this moth at Island View Beach yesterday, May 30.  It looks like a Xanthorhoe moth to me.   Jeremy Tatum responds:  To me, too.  I think X. defensaria.

 

Xanthorhoe defensaria  (Lep.: Geometridae)   Val George

   Steven Roias found this caterpillar of a Mouse Moth Amphipyra tragopoginis in his Saanich yard.

 Mouse Moth Amphipyra tragopoginis (Lep.: Noctuidae)  Steven Roias

   Jeremy Tatum shows a photograph of a Spilosoma virginica, reared from a caterpillar last year, the adult released yesterday at Rithet’s Bog.  The caterpillar of this moth is the familiar Yellow Woolly Bear.

 

Spilosoma virginica (Lep.: Erebidae – Arctiinae)  Jeremy Tatum

   Jochen Möhr writes from Metchosin:

This morning at the black light –

1 Plagodis phlogosaria

1 Tyria jacobaeae

 

Jeff Gaskin writes:  Yesterday, May 31, on Mount Tolmie there were at least 4 Painted Ladies and 1 Pale Tiger Swallowtail as well as a few Cabbage Whites.  Today, June 1, a walk along Hector Road produced the following butterflies  :  at least 8 Pale Tiger Swallowtails, 3 or 4 Western Tiger Swallowtails, a Lorquin’s Admiral, a Red Admiral as well as a number of Cabbage Whites. Kirsten Mills  tells me she was up Mount Tolmie about noon today, June 1, and saw a total of 6 Lady butterflies.  She thought one may have been a West Coast Lady but wasn’t sure.  Also up on the hill was a Red Admiral, a Lorquin’s Admiral, 2 Anise and 6 Pale Tiger Swallowtails and 2 Propertius Duskywings.

 

Jeremy Tatum writes:   Bill Savale and I visited the railway line north of Cowichan Station on June 1, and we saw:  6 Western Tiger Swallowtails,  1 Pale Tiger Swallowtail,  3 Margined Whites, 1 Satyr Comma,  1 Western Spring Azure.