2023 June 11 evening

   Jeremy Tatum writes:  I visited the site of the Silvery Blue colony at Koksilah Road today.  No butterflies – adults or ova.   However, I think we may be too late in the season to see them, and the colony probably still survives.  The lupin flowers are almost finished – going to seed.   There are no lupins on the grass verge outside the fence – but there are plenty inside the fence in the field.  Be warned if you go there that the ground along the verge outside the fence is exceedingly irregular, and it would be very easy to break an ankle there.

I also visited the railway line north of Cowichan Station.  Very few butterflies there.  No Margined Whites – perhaps we are in between the flight seasons of the two broods.  Just two or three each of Western Tiger Swallowtail and Lorquin’s Admiral, one Western Spring Azure (I tried hard to identify it as some other species, but it persistently came up as Western Spring Azure) and one Cedar Hairstreak.  And, while they have no business on this invertebrate site, I saw two huge, fist-sized Western Toads.  I have seen them there in other years, too.

Jeff Gaskin writes that he saw a Four-spotted Skimmer today in the area between the parking lot and Tuesday Pond at Swan Lake – a lifer for him!   He may see more later on, for they are not uncommon, and the shape of the abdomen is distinctive.   There are currently lots of culicids in that area.  I wonder if Jeff found any there – or, to be more accurate, if any found him.