2016 July 26

 

   Request from Jeremy Tatum.  We are receiving photographs of a wonderful variety of insects and other invertebrates.  Often the photographer doesn’t know the species, and it is then great fun for us to track it down, and we enjoy doing that.  However, sometimes you do know the species.  If you do already know the species that you have photographed, please indicate what the species is – otherwise I have to spend time trying to identify it myself!  Thanks!

 

Gordon Hart writes:  The July count was down in numbers from June, but there were still 13 species compared with 11 last year. We had more Cabbage Whites and Pine Whites than 2015, but far fewer Woodland Skippers. Jeff Gaskin says that Lynda Dowling had already harvested her lavender, which last year accounted for over 1000 skippers. I had recorded only one Grey Hairstreak (in our yard), until I saw Nathan Fisk’s photo on the Invertalert from Fort Rodd Hill within the count period. I saw two others just prior to the count in the Pike Lake area, but I could not find them again. There were no West Coast Ladies seen on this year’s count.

 

Here is the July summary:

 

Anise Swallowtail           3

Cabbage White                      417

Essex Skipper                          11

Grey Hairstreak                        2

Lorquin’s Admiral                    50

Mourning Cloak                         2

Painted Lady                              6

Pale Tiger Swallowtail               3

Pine White                               52

Red Admiral                               6

Satyr Comma                             1

Western Tiger Swallotail        46

Woodland Skipper                  43

 

 

   Annie Pang sends a photograph of a Honey Bee Apis mellifera.

 

 

 

Annie also sends a photograph of a robber fly.  Thanks to Rob Cannings for the identification as Eudioctria sackeni.

 

 

Marie O’Shaughnessy writes:  Here’s one of a few Pine Whites we saw Sunday July 24th 2016. This individual was seen at Trevlac Place at 2.20pm.

 

 

Male Pine White Neophasia menapia (Lep.: Pieridae)   Marie O’Shaghnessy

 

 

 

   Jeremy Tatum went to Cordova Spit today (July 26) looking for Western Branded Skippers, but he saw none.  Previous records suggest that we have to wait until August.  David Robichaud photographed one there last year on August 3.  Records there from previous years are August 6 and August 19.   Jeremy continues:  I had a consolation prize when I got back to the Island View Beach parking lot, where I saw an Anise Swallowtail.  Island View Beach is a possible locality for this species. The caterpillars there feed on Lomatium nudicaule and (don’t tell the botanists!) on Glehnia littoralis, both of which grow on the dunes.  Yesterday I spotted, through binoculars and just out of reach of my grasping hands, a very young caterpillar of a Western Tiger Swallowtail on a cottonwood (Populus sp.) at McIntyre Reservoir, Central Saanich.

 

Gordon Hart writes:  6 Woodland Skippers, a Grey Hairstreak and a Cabbage White in my Highlands yard today.