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.

2024 July 5 evening

2024 July 5 evening

   Marie O’Shaughnessy counted butterflies and dragonflies yesterday, July 4, as follows:

Outerbridge Park
1 Lorquin’s Admiral
1 Western Tiger Swallowtail
1 Cabbage White
4 Essex Skippers

3 Cardinal Meadowhawks
2 Blue-eyed Darners

 McIntyre reservoir
1 Painted Lady
2 Cabbage Whites 

2 Western Pond Hawk, male and female
The female was busily eating a female damsel fly. A vicious predator!
7 Blue Dashers
4 Common Green Darners
4 Blue-eyed Darners
6 Eight-spotted Skimmers
2 Variegated  Meadowhawks
Many damselflies mating

Mount Tolmie
1 Western Tiger Swallowtail
2 Lorquin’s Admirals
2 Painted Ladies
1 Cabbage White
1 Red Admiral

 

Male Western Pondhawk Erythemis collocata  (Odo.: Libellulidae)  Marie O’Shaughnessy

 

Western Pondhawk Erythemis collocata  (Odo.: Libellulidae)  Marie O’Shaughnessy

 

Western Pondhawk Erythemis collocata with damselfly prey (Odo.: Libellulidae)
Marie O’Shaughnessy

Western Pondhawk Erythemis collocata  (Odo.: Libellulidae)  Marie O’Shaughnessy

Variegated Meadowhawk  Sympetrum corruptum  (Odo.: Libellulidae)
Marie O’Shaughnessy

Painted Lady Vanessa cardui  (Lep.: Nymphalidae)  Marie O’Shaughnessy

   The moth below was photographed by Jochen Möhr in Metchosin this morning.

Eulithis xylina   (Lep.: Geometridae)  Jochen Möhr