2018 May 23 morning

 

   Ron Flower writes:  Yesterday May 22 Nora and I went to Island View Beach and found two Anise Swallowtails at the boat ramp,  a Tiger Swallowtail and numerous Ringlets in the back field. Then we stopped at Eddy’s storage and found at least a dozen very active Field Crescents.

 

Field Crescent Phyciodes pratensis (Lep.: Nymphalidae) Ron Flower

 

 

Field Crescent Phyciodes pratensis (Lep.: Nymphalidae) Ron Flower

 

   Sheryl Falls writes:  Several (at least 3) Cinnabar moths Tyria jacobaeae  at Harewood Plains, Nanaimo, on May 21.

 

Cinnabar Moth Tyria jacobaeae (Lep.: Erebidae – Arctiinae)  Sheryl Falls

 

   While viewers have correctly interpreted my exhortation  to “concentrate their attention on the less frequently photographed species” as meaning “please do not flood me with dozens of photographs of Cabbage Whites and the like” during the conference, I was not to get off so lightly.  I was engaged in an earnest discussion last night with a Victoria astronomer on the latest trends in astrophysics, when she changed the subject and told me that she had lots of Cabbage White caterpillars on her cabbages.  She did not want to kill the poor things, but she did not want them to eat her cabbages, and would I kindly deal with the problem.  I haven’t ever revealed my interest in caterpillars to my very professional colleagues, so I don’t know which Invert Alert viewer must have tattle-taled.  Anyway, the outcome is that, instead of being flooded with dozens of photographs of Cabbage Whites, I am now to be flooded with dozens of Cabbage White caterpillars.  I am going to have to sneak out of the conference and place them carefully on one of the several other species of wild Brassicaceae that grow on the Saanich peninsula and on which I know the caterpillars will feed.  J

   Anyway, keep on sending observations and photographs – though expect some delays during this conference week.   Jeremy