INVERTEBRATE ALERT
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.

March 30

2016 March 30

 

   Aziza Cooper writes:  The monthly butterfly walk is this Sunday, April 3 at 1pm. We will meet at the top of Mount Tolmie and decide on our destination. Since butterflies need sunshine and warm temperatures to fly, this walk will be cancelled if the weather is cold or cloudy.

 

   For info, email Aziza at tanageraz@yahoo.com or call her cell phone: 250-516-7703.

 

 

   Annie Pang writes:  I was so pleased to get a pose of this rather tattered but still beautiful (to me) Mourning Cloak. Taken in Victoria BC, March 29th 2016 at Gorge Pk.  I have also seen a Mesoleuca gratulata but it would not land.  Same for a Western Spring Azure –  frustrating!

 

Mourning Cloak Nymphalis antiopa (Lep.: Nymphalidae)   Annie Pang

 

   Rosemary Jorna sends a nice picture of an apparently well-marked moth from Peden Bluff, March 24, but so far it has escaped all efforts at identification.  If anyone has any clues, please let us know!

 Unidentified moth (Lep.: Pyralidae)   Rosemary Jorna

  

 Jeremy Tatum reports a Western Spring Azure,  a Sara Orangetip, and a California Tortoiseshell  from Mount Tolmie, at about 1:00 p.m. this afternoon, March 30.  The tortoiseshell was sunning itself on the reservoir, as is the custom of nymphalids on Mount Tolmie.  It looked as though it was waiting for someone to take a photograph if it.