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.

June 15

2108 June 15

 

   Jeremy Tatum and David Harris went hopefully in overcast conditions to Eddy’s Storage on Stelly’s Cross Road yesterday, and we did manage to see a few Field Crescents still there.  Presumably in sunny weather there will still be quite a few to see there.  We also saw an adult Essex (European) Skipper.  Next stop was Gordon and Anne-Marie’s house and garden in the Highlands.  It was still overcast there and the only butterfly we saw was a rather late Western Spring Azure, which (if it is not the same species as the Holly Blue familiar to David in England) was a lifer for him.  The highlight there was a wonderful tea with cookies put on for us by Anne-Marie.

 

   Annie Pang sends a photograph of a Lorquin’s Admiral seen from the underside – plus a pair of Harmonia axyridis ladybird beetles.

 

Lorquin’s Admiral Limenitis lorquini (Lep.: Nymphalidae)

with two  Harmonia axyridis (Col.: Coccinellidae)

Annie Pang

 

   Jochen Möhr has been trying his hand – and camera – at bees, and photographed several. We haven’t managed to identify them to species, though Annie Pang suggests that the first is probably Bombus melanopygus

 

Probably Bombus melanopygus (  Hym.: Apidae)   Jochen Möhr

 

Unidentified bee    Jochen Möhr

 

Unidentified bee    Jochen Möhr

 

Unidentified bee    Jochen Möhr

 

 

Unidentified bee    Jochen Möhr

 

   Jody Wells sends photographs of two butterflies from Mount Tolmie, June 14.

 

Propertius Duskywing Erynnis propertius (Lep.: Hesperiidae) Jody Wells

Painted Lady Vanessa cardui (Lep.: Nymphalidae)  Jody Wells