This blog provides an informal forum for terrestrial invertebrate watchers to post recent sightings of interesting observations in the southern Vancouver Island region. Please send your sightings by email to Jeremy Tatum (tatumjb352@gmail.com). Be sure to include your name, phone number, the species name (common or scientific) of the invertebrate you saw, location, date, and number of individuals. If you have a photograph you are willing to share, please send it along. Click on the title above for an index of past sightings.The index is updated most days.

2023 March18

 2023 March 18

 

 Butterflies Galore!  

 

 Mourning Cloaks:   March 17 – one at Viaduct Flats, Don Kramer.    March 18 –  one at Gorge Road and Dunedin, Thomas Barbin;   three at Swan Lake,  Jeff Gaskin

 

California Tortoiseshells:   March 18 – one at Amy Road, Langford,1:30 pm. Robin Robinson;    one on Mount Tolmie Reservoir, 4:15 pm. Jeremy Tatum.

 

Cabbage White:  March 18 –  one, Panama Flats,  Val George

 

The only butterflies reported earlier this year to Invert Alert were single Mourning Cloaks on February 21 and March 15.

 

 

    Some moths have also been reported:  Jochen Moehr reported and photographed a Eupithecia ravocostaliata/nevadata in Metchosin  (Sorry, Jochen – my new computer is resisting my attempts to do an umlaut!); Libby Avis sighted a Xylena nupera and an Orthosia praeses in Part Alberni; and Val George photographed a Hydriomena nubilofasciata at his home in Oak Bay.

 

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Eupithecia ravocostaliata/nevadata (Lep.: Geometridae)     Jochen Moehr

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Hydriomena nubilofasciata (Lep.: Geometridae)   Val George