This blog provides an informal forum for terrestrial invertebrate watchers to post recent sightings of interesting observations in the southern Vancouver Island region. Please send your sightings by email to Jeremy Tatum (tatumjb352@gmail.com). Be sure to include your name, phone number, the species name (common or scientific) of the invertebrate you saw, location, date, and number of individuals. If you have a photograph you are willing to share, please send it along. Click on the title above for an index of past sightings.The index is updated most days.

May 6

2017 May 6

 

   Reminder:  Monthly Butterfly Walk tomorrow.  Meet at the top of Mount Tolmie, 1:00 pm. Sunday May 7.  All welcome.  For details, see the May 4 posting.

 

Jeremy Tatum writes:  I have been visited by very few moths at my Saanich apartment this year, and I have been feeling neglected.  This morning, however, I was at last favoured with a visit by a moth – the Common Clothes Moth Tineola bisselliella.

 

Common Clothes Moth Tineola bisselliella (Lep.: Tineidae)

Jeremy Tatum

   I went up Bear Hill today, the centre of the Gypsy Moth infestation, but I didn’t see any in any of its stages. And I saw only one butterfly – a lone Western Spring Azure.

 

   Ken Vaughan writes:  I went to the Beaver Lake Retriever Ponds today, with high hopes of finding some odes. I did. I believe the first photo is a male Pacific Forktail, and the second is a female, although I’m less sure of it than the first photo.  [Thanks to Rob Cannings, who confirms that this is indeed a teneral female Pacific Forktail.]

 

Pacific Forktail Ischnura cervula (Odo.: Coenagrionidae)  Ken Vaughan

 Pacific Forktail  Ischnura cervula (Odo.: Coenagrionidae)  Ken Vaughan

 

Val George writes:  On Thursday, May 4, I was in Tofino.  The 22 ºC weather produced for me the first significant display of butterflies I’ve seen this year:  about a dozen Western Brown Elfins (photo),  2 Western Pine Elfins (photo), a Mourning Cloak, and 3 Cabbage Whites.  On the way home I photographed a White-ribboned Carpet Moth Mesoleuca gratulata at Somenos Marsh in Duncan.

 

Western Brown Elfin Incisalia iroides (Lep.: Lycaenidae) Val George

 Western Pine Elfin (Lep.: Incisalia eryphon) Val George

Mesoleuca gratulata (Lep.: Geometridae)  Val George