Author: tatumjb352

2025 July 7 evening

   Gordon Hart writes:   There were ten participants on Sunday’s Butterfly Walk, starting at Mount Tolmie, where we saw several swallowtails, perhaps three Pale Tiger Swallowtails and at least one Western Tiger Swallowtail. There were about four Lorquin’s Admirals and six Cabbage Whites. Our next stop was at the McIntyre Reservoir, where we saw only a few Cabbage Whites, and many dragonflies of several species: Black Saddlebags, including a mating pair in flight, Eight-spotted Skimmer, Cardinal Meadowhawk, Western Pondhawk, Blue Dasher and several damselflies.

  Our next stop was Island View Beach, where we saw about five Lorquin’s Admirals, several Cabbage Whites, and many Essex Skippers. I lost count at 26!  One of the skippers was of the form “pallida”.

  We also saw a Woodland Skipper, the first of the year;  this species flies later in the year than the Essex Skipper.

  Many individuals of a tortricid moth Acleris albicomana were seen on and around the rose bushes. 

Female Western Pondhawk  Erythemis collocata 
(Odo.: Libellulidae)  
Gordon Hart

Male Blue Dasher Pachydiplax longipennis  (Odo.: Libellulidae)  Gordon Hart

Male Cardinal Meadowhawk  Sympetrum illotum 
(Odo.: Libellulidae) 
Gordon Hart

Tule Bluets Enallagma carunculatum  (Odo.: Coenagrionidae)  Gordon Hart

Male Eight-spotted Skimmer Libellula forensis  (Odo.: Libellulidae)  Gordon Hart

Male Blue-eyed Darner Rhionaeschna multicolor 
(Odo.: Aeshnidae)
Gordon Hart

Essex Skipper Thymelicus lineola  (Lep.: Hesperiidae)  Gordon Hart

Essex Skipper Thymelicus lineola  f. “pallida”  (Lep.: Hesperiidae)  Gordon Hart

Acleris albicomana  (Lep.: Tortricidae)  Gordon Hart

2025 July 7 morning

We hope to post an account of yesterday’s Butterfly Walk this evening.

   Sher Falls sends a photograph of a pair of Cabbage Whites from her Nanaimo garden, nicely showing the difference between the sexes.

Male (L) and female (R) Cabbage Whites Pieris rapae
(Lep.: Pieridae)
  Sher Falls

   Also from her garden, a beetle, kindly identified for us by Scott Gilmore.  The beetle is just taking off, and its hind (flying) wings have not yet fully unfolded.

Xestoleptura sp. (Col.: Cerambycidae) Sher Falls

   Ian Cooper sends a selection of pictures taken just before dawn on the morning of July 06 by the Galloping Goose in View Royal.

Reticulate Taildropper  Prophysaon andersonii (Pul.: Arionidae)    Ian Cooper

Rugathodes sexpunctatus (Ara.: Theridiidae)   Ian Cooper

Male Dwarf Spider  Agyneta sp. (Ara.: Linyphiidae)   Ian Cooper

Crane Fly  (Dip.: Tipulidae)   Ian Cooper

Ceratogalia gueneata  (Lep.: Geometridae)  Ian Cooper

Psyllobora borealis (Col.: Coccinellidae)   Ian Cooper

  Aziza Cooper writes:   Yesterday, July 6, at Cowichan Station there were:

Western Tiger Swallowtail – 2
Pale Tiger Swallowtail – 1
Cabbage White – 8
Margined White – 2
Satyr Comma – 1
Essex Skipper – 10+

Margined White  Pieris marginalis  (Lep.: Pieridae)   Aziza Cooper

Margined White  Pieris marginalis  (Lep.: Pieridae)   Aziza Cooper

2025 July 6 morning

  Monthly Butterfly Walk, Sunday July 6

  As usual, we shall gather in the small parking lot next to the reservoir at the top of Mount Tolmie at 1:00 pm on Sunday July 6.  We’ll have a quick look to see what butterflies we can see there, and then we shall discuss amongst ourselves and decide on a location to go to from there.   Depending upon numbers, we may be able to car-pool. We’ll return to Mount Tolmie in the late afternoon, probably around 4:00 pm, at which time a number of hill-topping butterflies are often flying around or resting on the reservoir.   All are welcome, whether seasoned butterfly-seekers, or newcomers wanting to learn some of our local butterflies.

   This gracillariid moth was at Jeremy Tatum’s Saanich apartment building this morning. 

(Lep.: Gracillariidae) JeremyTatum

2025 July 5

  Monthly Butterfly Walk, Sunday July 6

  As usual, we shall gather in the small parking lot next to the reservoir at the top of Mount Tolmie at 1:00 pm on Sunday July 6.  We’ll have a quick look to see what butterflies we can see there, and then we shall discuss amongst ourselves and decide on a location to go to from there.   Depending upon numbers, we may be able to car-pool. We’ll return to Mount Tolmie in the late afternoon, probably around 4:00 pm, at which time a number of hill-topping butterflies are often flying around or resting on the reservoir.   All are welcome, whether seasoned butterfly-seekers, or newcomers wanting to learn some of our local butterflies.

2025 July 4

   Here are some photographs by Ian Cooper of creatures found at View Royal overnight – July 4.

Weevil – Dyslobus decoratus (Col.: Curculionidae)   Ian Coope

Rove beetle – Quedius sp. (Col.: Staphylinidae)   Ian Cooper

Western Black Carpenter Ant  Camponotus modoc 
(Hym.: Formicidae)  
Ian Cooper

Plant bug  (Hem.: Miridae)   Ian Cooper

Predatory Fungus Gnat  Macrocera sp. (Dip.: Keroplatidae)  
Ian Cooper

Callobius pictus (Ara.: Amaurobiidae)   Ian Cooper 

2020 July 3 evening

   Marie O’Shaughnessy writes:  I took a brief walk through Uplands Park at noon today and I saw nine Sheep Moths flying around. Only one was settled.  It was a nice female depositing eggs.

  Jeremy Tatum writes:  Upon what is it depositing eggs?   I usually find the eggs on Ocean Spray, Snowberry or Nootka Rose.   This looks like grass, or a rush – something the caterpillars might not like.

Sheep Moth Hemileuca eglanterina  (Lep.: Saturniidae)
Marie O’Shaughnessy

Also at Uplands Park, a Blue-eyed Darner, a Lorquin’s Admiral, and 11 Essex Skippers.

Female Blue-eyed Darner Rhionaeschna muliticolor
(Odo.: Aeshnidae)
Marie O’Shaughnessy

Marie has also been to McIntyre Reservoir recently, and has seen there “all the usual dragonflies”, plus one Black Saddlebags, lots of fresh Western Pondhawks, Blue Dasher,  Blue-eyed Darner, California Darner , Eight-spotted Skimmers, Cardinal Meadowhawk, and Tule Bluet.

   Val George writes: This afternoon, July 3, I checked out the railway track at Cowichan Station. My butterfly count was: 3 Margined Whites, 3 Cabbage Whites, several other unidentifiable Whites, 2 Satyr Commas, 2 Essex Skippers, and one each of Lorquin’s Admiral, Western Tiger Swallowtail and Pale Tiger Swallowtail.

Margined White  Pieris marginalis  (Lep.: Pieridae)  Val George

2025 July 3 morning

   Jeremy Tatum writes:  This Elder Moth was outside my Saanich apartment building this morning

Zotheca tranquilla  (Lep.: Noctuidae)  Jeremy Tatum

   Bruce Whittington sent some photographs of a wasp and a bee from Ladysmith.   Although they are not strictly recent photographs, they will maybe nevertheless interest viewers.  The first shows a European Paper Wasp apparently biting into the base of a Cuphea flower to reach some nectar or pollen.  The second shows a Honey Bee that may not be trying to do exactly the same thing itself, but may be trying to take advantage of a hole previously bitten into by the wasp.

Polistes dominula  (Hym.: Vespidae)  Bruce Whittington

Honey Bee  Apis mellifera  (Hym.: Apidae)  Bruce Whittington

2025 July 2 evening

   Interested viewers may enjoy learning that a Tiger Swallowtail butterfly chrysalis that Ian Cooper spotted on December 13 2024 in View Royal and that was recently checked on before dawn on June 30th, was found to be empty at dawn the following day, July 1st.

  Several photos of the empty chrysalis exuvia were sent to Jeremy Tatum for review and it was determined that the butterfly had safely ecloded, most likely as the day warmed up on June 30th.

  Although he didn’t witness the butterfly’s eclosion live as it occurred, Ian was delighted to learn that the chrysalis had remained viable throughout the previous six and a half months and that its metamorphosing inhabitant had finally managed to emerge.

  Jeremy writes:  Although the empty chrysalis skin may look a bit messy and unattractive, seeing exactly where it split when the adult insect emerged told me that it was indeed a butterfly that had emerged and not some dipterous or hymenopterous parasitoid.  We don’t know whether the butterfly was Pterourus rutulus or P. eurymedon.

Empty pupal shell of Tiger Swallowtail  Pterourus sp.
(Lep.: Papilionidae)
Ian Cooper

2025 July 2 afternoon

   Ian Cooper writes: Here are six pictures taken before dawn on July 01 2025 by the Galloping Goose in View Royal.

Banana slug  Ariolimax columbianus (Pul.: Arionidae)  Ian Cooper

Prophysaon sp. (probably foliolatum) (Pul.: Arionidae)  Ian Cooper

Male Running crab spider  Philodromus dispar 
(Ara.: Philodromidae) 
Ian Cooper

Philodromus rufus  (Ara.: Philodromidae)  Ian Cooper 

Hairy Spider Weevil  Barypeithes pellucidus (Col.: Curculionidae)  Ian Cooper

Gelis sp. (Hym.: Ichneumonidae)   Ian Cooper

2025 July 1 morning

   Kirsten Mills found this large beetle near the Hillside Mall in Victoria, June30:

Polyphylla crinita  (Col.:  Scarabaeidae)   Kirsten Mills

   Ian Cooper writes: Here are six pictures from *Colquitz River Park and the #Galloping Goose in View Royal taken before dawn on June 30.

# Unidentified male Crane Fly (Dip.: Tipulidae)   Ian Cooper

# Unidentified Crane Flies in copula (Dip.: Tipulidae)   Ian Cooper
These are much smaller than and probably a different species from the previous crane fly.

# Limax maximus (Pul.: Limacidae)   Ian Cooper 

* Threeband Slug, Ambigolimax sp. (Pul.: Limacidae)   Ian Cooper

* Clubiona sp. (Ara.: Clubionidae)   Ian Cooper

# Complex Enoplognatha ovata (Ara.: Theridiidae)   Ian Cooper

 

  Aziza Cooper writes, on June 30:  At about 5 pm, at Mount Tolmie:
Anise Swallowtail – 1, missing all of its right hindwing
Western Tiger Swallowtail – 1 
Pale Tiger Swallowtail – 1
Lorquin’s Admiral – 3
Painted Lady – 2

Anise Swallowtail  Papilio zelicaon  (Lep.: Papilionidae)
  Aziza Cooper

Painted Lady  Vanessa cardui  (Lep.: Nymphalidae)  Aziza Cooper