2015 June 15

   Jeremy Tatum writes:  Yesterday (June 14) I went briefly to Eddy’s Self Storage at 1064 Stelly’s Cross Road, Brentwood Bay, and I saw several Field Crescents there.  Thank you, Aziza Cooper, for drawing our attention to these in the June 11 posting.

   Annie Pang sends a picture of an Eight-spotted Skipper from Esquimalt Gorge Park, June 10.

Eight-spotted Skimmer Libellula forensis (Odo.: Libellulidae)  Annie Pang

   Jeremy Tatum sends pictures of three rather different and specialized moth cocoons

from the last few days.

Nycteola frigidana (Lep.: Nolidae)  Jeremy Tatum

Behrensia conchiformis (Lep.: Noctuidae)  Jeremy Tatum

Schreckensteinia festaliella (Lep.: Schreckensteiniidae) Jeremy Tatum

Schreckensteinia festaliella (Lep.: Schreckensteiniidae) Jeremy Tatum

   This last insect was identified for me by Eric LaGasa. It seemed hardly larger than a House Fly.  4 mm from head to tail;  6 mm from head to wing tip.  Larval foodplant Rubus. It is known as the Raspberry Skeletonizer.

   Eric LaGasa also kindly identified the tortricid below as the European Leaf Roller. Archips rosanus. It’s all in the costal fold!

Archips rosanus (Lep.: Tortricidae)  Jeremy Tatum

   Ken Vaughan writes:  Off to the Beaver Lake Ponds again this morning, June 15. (What else do I do?) Not much new, except for sighting two male Common Whitetails Plathemis lydia, and eventually getting close to one to get a good photo. Also included is a reminder that dragonflies are carnivorous, in spite of their
beauty: a teneral Western Pondhawk munching on a Tule Bluet. I watched it snatch it right out of the air.

Common Whitetail Plathemis lydia (Odo.: Libellulidae)  Ken Vaughan

Western Pondhawk Erythemis collocata (Odo.: Libellulidae)

and

Tule Bluet Enallagma carunculatum (Odo.: Coenagrionidae)
Ken Vaughan

   Val George sends a photograph of a Dun Skipper from the VNHS trip to Nanoose and Harewood Plains on June 14.