2016 May 5

 

    Aziza Cooper writes

 

   On Sunday, May 1, about a dozen butterfliers, led by Gordon Hart, gathered at Mount Tolmie for the monthly butterfly walk. The weather was perfect: warm and sunny. We visited four sites and saw a total of 12 species.

 

Mount Tolmie:

Anise Swallowtail

Pale Swallowtail

Western Tiger Swallowtail

Propertius Duskywing

Spring Azure

Cabbage White

 

Lupin patch next to Sooke Road at Highway 1 overpass:

Silvery Blue – 6 or more

Red Admiral (flyby)

 

Munn Road powerlines:

Brown Elfin (including an egg on a Gaultheria calyx)

 

Gordon Hart’s home, Blue Valley Road:

Green Comma

Cedar Hairstreak

 

Mount Tolmie, 4pm:

Painted Lady

 

The Silvery Blues gave a wonderful show, with a female on a lupin and two males perched or flying around her. We saw the tiny white eggs on the lupin heads.

 

To which Jeremy Tatum adds one more species – though unfortunately a deceased one.  One or two of us saw, near the Silvery Blue location, an ant dragging a dead Moss’s Elfin along the sidewalk.

 

   Annie Pang sends a photograph, taken yesterday, of a potter wasp.  Thanks to Matthias Buck for the identification.

 Potter wasp Ancistrocerus sp.  (Hym.: Vespidae)  Annie Pang

 

   Rosemary Jorna sends a picture of a bee [which I believe is a Honey Bee – Jeremy] from Scafe Hill, May 5.

 

Honey Bee Apis mellifera (Hym.: Apidae)  Rosemary Jorna

 

 

   Jody Wells sends a picture of a Pale Tiger Swallowtail.

 

 

 

   Jeremy Tatum writes: I saw two Red Admirals and a Western Tiger Swallowtail (only my second this year) along the Lochside Trail north of Blenkinsop Lake today.  I also met Mike and Barbara McGrenere, who said that they had just seen two Mourning Cloaks along the same trail.   But still no Satyr Comma.  As Enrico Fermi said, in a different context:  Where are they?

 

 

   And now, three interesting beetles. Enoclerus eximius  found by Nathan Fisk on the maples ‎backing Esquimalt Lagoon.

   Enoclerus eximius (Col.: Cleridae)  Nathan Fisk

 

 

   And two found by Libby Avis.  Of the first, Libby writes:  Anisosticta bitriangularis, the Marsh Lady Beetle. A very small ladybird – only about 3-4mm. We have never seen this before, but found several in a wet meadow. Taken on May 1^st in the Alberni Valley.

 

 

 

And for this one, Libby writes:  Ribbed Pine Borer,  Rhagium inquisitor. Found on newly felled Douglas Fir also in the Alberni Valley on May 1^st. Have seen this before in the interior, but this is the first one for us on the island.