2017 April 2

   Gerry and Wendy Ansell write:  We got our first butterflies of the year yesterday (April 1).  There were two Moss’s Elfins on the Galloping Goose trail at Roche Cove Regional park in a sunny spot without wind.

Incisalia mossii (Lep.: Lycaenidae)  Wendy Ansell

   Jeremy Tatum writes:  I, too, saw my first butterfly of the year yesterday, albeit a modest Cabbage White, at South Valley Drive. (Guess what I was doing there.)  And Annie Pang photographed a Honey Bee at Gorge Park Community Gardens.  Although the season has had a very late start, all this augurs well for the first Butterfly Walk of the season this afternoon.  For details, see the March 30 posting, but, in brief, meet at the top of Mount Tolmie at 1:00 pm today. All welcome, and I expect we’ll see a few first-of-the-seasons.

Honey Bee Apis mellifera (Hym.: Apidae)  Annie Pang

   Jeremy Tatum writes:  At Munn Road yesterday I saw an Epirrhoe plebeculata (a day-flying geometrid moth), but, strangely, no Mesoleuca gratulata.  I very much want to know what is the larval foodplant of E. plebeculata.  It is usually listed as Galium, which is the foodplant of other Epirrhoe species, but I suspect plebeculata prefers something else.  So keep a look-out, all, to see if you can spot this moth ovipositing!

 Added later:

   Seven brave souls met to do the first of this year’s Butterfly Walks.   We walked along the Lochside Trail from Borden Road to almost Lohbrunners, but alas, the sunny start to the morning did not last.  The afternoon was largely cloudy, with the Sun hiding frustratingly close to the edge of a large cloud, and it was just a little bit too cool, cloudy and breezy;  no butterflies turned up.  It was nevertheless a very enjoyable afternoon, with three newcomers and four regulars, all great enthusiasts.  Although there were no butterflies, we found three young caterpillars of the noctuid moth Aseptis adnixa, on Oemleria cerasiformis, and a beetle expert with us showed us a ciid beetle.  Not all scientific names are long and unpronounceable, and my computer can do all the red-underlining it likes, but that’s what it was, a beetle of the Family Ciidae.  The beetle was just as small as its Family name.