In the BC leps meeting this week I received the Blackmore award for 2023 for my Acleris Clarkei observation in May, Fort St John. A new species for the provincial checklist and – not to be grandiose or anything – but it was possibly the greatest achievement of any BC naturalist, ever.

I kid (heavily), of course. BC Leps is extremely informal sort of group and at this point the award process is also extremely informal. Next year I’d like to get involved and help really get a process nailed down. Dave Holden + Jon Shepard put forward a couple of observations which were probably vastly more important and exciting, but without more time to examine them it was hard to judge. And honestly, there may have been other important observations made this year in the province that we all missed. So yes, next year I think I’ll offer to play a larger role in the process. Time to be less of a wallflower.

But all that aside, it was a damn cool sighting. I actually wrote a post a few weeks ago about it.

In case you’re curious, Ernest H. Blackmore was one of the most important early lepidopterists here in BC. He tended the Royal British Museum in Victoria and updated and corrected an earlier list for the province for macrolepidoptera, published in 1927. When he died two years later, the museum’s collection stood at 5,000 specimens and despite the onset of the Great Depression, funds were acquired to purchase Blackmore’s personal collection of 12,000 more.