2107 February 14

   Nathan Fisk writes (February 13):  With the Sun come the inverts! Only one buzzing around the daisies at Fort Rodd Hill. Looks a lot like the fly I saw in February last year but I’m no expert.  Jeremy Tatum responds:  Nor am I, but I’m certain that this is a drone fly Eristalis sp., and very close to certain that it is “the”  Drone Fly Eristalis tenax.

  Jeremy continues:  Yes, invertebrates are coming back, and I had two noctuid moths at my Saanich apartment this morning (February 14), both of them Egira hiemalis.  This is the first of our woodling moths to appear early in the year.  “Hiemalis” means “of the winter”.  I looked up in the Index to this site (click on INVERTEBRATE ALERT at the very top of the Invert Alert site to find the Index) and I see that Egira hiemalis has appeared on this site on dates ranging from January 21 to March 26.  I have never seen the caterpillar, but Bob Duncan gives the foodplant as Douglas Fir.

Drone Fly Eristalis tenax (Dip.:  Syrphidae)  Nathan Fisk

 Egira hiemalis (Lep.: Noctuidae)   Jeremy Tatum