This year I made a real effort to travel more widely around the province to see what moths I could turn up. One of the benefits of remote work is that I can work from anywhere, so figured I’d take advantage. I ended up mothing in Fort St John, Tumbler Ridge, Prince George, Osoyoos, Oliver, Okanagan Falls, Lillooet, Mara and Merritt. Final species count for the year: 652. Considering I’ve only seen 943 species in BC in total, this has been a heck of a year.

Fires, fires everywhere

But boy, the fires. Again and again I had to keep track of nearby forest fires to stay safe. First there was Fort St. John. A fire sprung up right after I arrived – in May, for heaven’s sake – robbing me of several key mothing locations and putting the town on evacuation alert. I’d intended to spend the entire month there, but after 3 weeks the air got so bad I decided to leave early.

Then there was Osoyoos in late July. One night I set up my light sheets just west of the town on Kilpoola Lake Road in a no-cellphone reception zone, and happily tended the sheets until 1 or 2 in the morning. When I drove down the mountain and returned to Osoyoos my phone started bleeping, informing me of an evacuation order. It turns out the side of the hillside opposite to where I’d set up my sheets was on fire and the residents of the town were out lining the roads watching the fire. Trees that were perhaps 80ft high were engulfed by flames of twice the height. The following day my mothing area was burned down. Very grim indeed.

Lillooet, Mara – same constant concern, but thankfully no more near misses. When did mothing become a dangerous hobby? X-treme mothing. Chechnya next.

New Stuff

Ah, but I sure found some great moths! I already mentioned Acleris clarkei in another post – a first observation of the species for BC and a new one for the BC checklist. But I saw a slew of other fascinating things too. A few highlights:

• Hypoprepia miniata (“Scarlet-winged lichen moth”) – see the image above. I know, I know, it’s not rare at all, but it’s such a gorgeous moth I’ve been jealous of all the other iNat sightings.
• Marathyssa inficita. Odd moth! The only member of the Euteliidae family I’d seen up to this point, and the only member of the family in BC. I’ll write up a post about them at some point.
• Ypsolopha canariella – a new Ypsolopha species for me, cool! I recognized it the moment I saw it – it was on the doomed evening in Osoyoos mentioned earlier, so something I won’t forget any time soon.
• Pelochrista dorsisignatana. Beautiful little micro. Odd genus, that. A real mixed bag.
• Selenia kentaria. S. alciphearia are extremely common in the lower mainland, but seeing an S. kentaria up north in Fort St. John in May was a pleasant surprise. At the time, it was the first observation for the province on iNat.
• Erebia discoidalis. First observation of this butterfly on iNat for BC! Well that was unexpected. I was primarily birding that day – I’d seen a great grey owl in the area before and had a faint hope for a repeat – but noticed this little fella while I was at it. I’m always thrilled to see butterflies, but generally don’t make the effort to seek them out.
• Eupsilia devia. Lovely little Noctuidae with distinct sharp lines. Again, a first observation for BC on iNat.
• Euxoa hollemani. I have a thing for the Euxoa: they’re a huge, difficult genus full of similar-looking moth. So encountering one that’s can be ID’d without cursing or dissection is pretty fun.
• Euxoa flavicollis. Another first for iNat for BC. I was rather miffed at myself for not IDing this, actually. I’d agonized over it for weeks, poring over photo after photo on bugguide. Thankfully Steve Morris on bugguide put me out of my misery. It had a very obvious, distinctive yellow collar but didn’t put two-and-two together with the species name (“flavi” – yellow, “collis” – collar).
• Manduca quinquemaculatus. Big honking hawk moth with a great scientific name – good name for a cat. In all honesty when I found it clinging to a tree next to my moth net I had no idea what I was looking at – I thought possibly it was a Sphinx species I wasn’t aware of. Same subtribe, as it turns out.
• Gazoryctra novigannus. A very lovely swift moth. Fascinating family. This is another family I’ll have to make a post on.

Honestly I probably have a lot more favourites, but these are the ones that immediately came to mind.

All in all a great year! Next year I’m doing another Africa trip but plan on spending a few weeks mothing the Creston area. Besides that… we’ll see!