2024 July 15 evening

Ian Cooper took multiple photographs of a hymenopterous insect spotted on fennel growing near the E&N trail in Esquimalt on July 14.  From a successful search on the Web, Ian finds that it is a hymenopterous parasitoid in the Family Ichneumonidae,  Subfamily Triphoninae, Tribe Exenterini.

Ichneumon wasp (Hym.: Ichneumonidae – Tryphoninae – Exenterini)  Ian Cooper

Ichneumon wasp (Hym.: Ichneumonidae – Tryphoninae – Exenterini)  Ian Cooper

Ichneumon wasp (Hym.: Ichneumonidae – Tryphoninae – Exenterini)  Ian Cooper

I don’t know how to predict what sort of a night is likely to be a good moth night.   Some people can predict when, but I don’t know how often they are right.  There have not been many moths at the Swan Lake Nature House this year – but this morning, July 16, there was a goodly number of moths there.  Ten or so, all different.   Needless to say, I didn’t have my camera with me. Later, I took my camera and tripod to the Goldstream Nature House – there was not a single moth there.   On the way back, I stopped at Swan Lake, but by that time only a single moth (shown below) was within tripod reach.  I have never found the caterpillar – it is supposed to feed on lichens or algae (not sure which) on tree trunks.  Anyway, it might be fruitful for moth photographers to pay a visit to Swan Lake in the mornings in the next few days.

Clemensia umbrata  (Erebidae – Arctiinae – Lithosiini) Jeremy Tatum

Missing Butterflies: Still missing this year –  Purplish Copper,  Margined White, Pine White.  Aziza Cooper saw a Woodland Skipper at Cowichan Station on July 14.  That is within the area covered by the annual butterfly report that Jeremy Tatum compiles from Invert Alert, so it is not technically “missing”.  Yet that is still the only one reported from the area, and there have been none from immediately around Victoria.