2024 July 1 evening
On June 30, Marie O’Shaughnessy saw, at Swan Lake:

4  Cardinal Meadowhawks
2 Common Green Darners
2 Blue-eyed Darners
1 Western Pondhawk
12 Blue Dashers mostly male
6  Lorquin’s Admirals
2 Western Tiger Swallowtails
1 Cabbage White
1 European Paper Wasp

And on Mount Tolmie

3 Red Admirals all seen together at one point
2  Western  Tiger Swallowtails
No Painted (or West Coast) Ladies

Red Admiral Vanessa atalanta  (Lep.: Nymphalidae)  Marie O’Shaughnessy

Red Admiral Vanessa atalanta  (Lep.: Nymphalidae)  Marie O’Shaughnessy

Red Admiral Vanessa atalanta  (Lep.: Nymphalidae)  Marie O’Shaughnessy

Lorquin’s Admiral Limenitis lorquini  (Lep.: Nymphalidae)  Marie O’Shaughnessy

Lorquin’s Admiral Limenitis lorquini  (Lep.: Nymphalidae)  Marie O’Shaughnessy

Cardinal Meadowhawk Sympetrum illotum (Odo.: Libellulidae)  Marie O’Shaughnessy

Blue Dasher Pachydiplax longipennis  (Odo.: Libellulidae)  Marie O’Shaughnessy

Jeremy Tatum writes:  I tried to persuade Dr Rob Cannings not to spend a lot of his time in the difficult task of tying to identify a dragonfly exuvia, but he gave us a good chunk of his time anyway.  Dr Cannings writes of the exuvia below:  It looks like Libellulidae, but the exuviae of some Corduliidae can be very similar. The structure of the labium is important and can’t be seen well here, except to separate these families from others. The shape of the head in exact dorsal view is useful as are the size/presence/absence of lateral and dorsal spines – especially in identifying genera and species. But you have to have awfully good views of these characters, and photographs usually are not clear enough.

Dragonfly exuvia (Odonata)   Marie O’Shaughnessy

And, by the way, Latin scholars, we do know that the word “exuviae”  is not used in the singular in classical Latin, but we badly need a word to describe cast skins such as the ones above, so entomologists have agreed to call such a skin an exuvia, which we hope will not cause undue damage or inconvenience to anyone.  “Exuviae” means “spoils” (e.g. of war); the English word, like the Latin, is not generally used in the singular, either.

European Paper Wasp  Polistes dominula (Hym.: Vespidae)  Marie O’Shaughnessy