Last weekend I took an extra day off to celebrate the start of National Moth Week and did a 3-day trip up to Lillooet and Cache Creek to see what I could find.
The first night wasn’t terribly successful. I set up my nets at one of my usual haunts by the Lillooet airport, which is a predominantly ponderosa pine habitat, and after a couple of hours the sheer volume of Choristoneura overran my sheets and nets. Bah! By midnight I packed it in. The nets contained a few different things in the morning, but not much. Learning my lesson, the following night I set up the nets at Kirby Flats, SE of Lillooet, carefully setting them away from the trees in what looked like promising pockets. The following morning I awoke at 5 to the sound of rain pummelling my hotel room window, which didn’t exactly fill me with confidence, but in the end it still proved to be a better night.
The final night I set up south of Cache Creek. Since check-in was so late at the hotel (4pm) I didn’t have time to charge all the batteries for my lights, so could only set up four. But it still ended up being the most interesting night of them all. All kinds of interesting stuff!
Here are the highlights.
Sympistis extremis
What on…? I never stumbled across this species in person or on paper and didn’t have the first clue at what I was looking at. Moth sp.? It’s nice to be flummoxed from time to time. I pulled this individual from a light trap on the second night up at Kirby Flats. Location and observation here. PNW has its usual thorough discussion of the moth, and I see Lars Crabo has collected this species from this very location as far back as 1999.
By the way, up until now I’d been driving to this location via Fountain Valley Road, but I had time to do a little exploring on this trip. It turns out it’s vastly simpler to reach some similarly good habitat from the base of Kirby Flats Rd instead. I’ll be using that route in future.
Other sympistis spp.
More Sympistis! At Cache Creek I picked up two more lifers in the genus: S. stabilis (the Brown Sallow) – handsome moth, reminiscent of a collared Tesagrotis – and S. umbrifascia, both shown above. I also saw a possible Sympistis major (looks right, right?), a couple of the common Sympistis greyi and a very battered Sympistis dinalda (not shown). If the S. major ID is correct, I think I’ve actually seen a lot of them over the years, I just never pinned them down to species.
A very Sympistis-y weekend.
Other highlights
Synanthedon bibionipennis, the Strawberry Crown Moth. Great stuff, I’d been eyeing this species for years. My 7th BC Sesiidae. I was taking a wander through the lovely Seton Creek Spawning Channels at Lillooet (strongly recommended) when this chap landed on a leaf right next to me. It’s not often I get to see clearwings outside of my pheromone traps, so this was a particularly happy sighting.
Euxoa declarata. Ahhh, Euxoa. Always bloody pigs to ID, compounded by the fact that there are 1014924014 species in the genus. But this chap was pretty unique and I saw a very similar one in Merritt last year. Could be wrong of course, but I feel relatively confident calling it.
Abagrotis nefascia. Speaking of “pigs to ID”… I saw a boatload of Abagrotis on this trip and rather lost heart trying to pin them down to species. This one, however, was lovely enough to work on. I think the ID is correct. I’ve seen them once or twice before.
Arctia caja, the Great Tiger Moth- or as my wife calls it, the Great Guernsey, which I think is far catchier (google it: the cows share the same colouration and markings). Beautiful moth. Not a lifer, but always a highlight to see.
Apantesis parthenice. I think? I find Apantesis kinda tricky, so I could be mistaken on this ID.
Pelochrista morrisoni. Again, am I positive? No, but looks right. This species in considered imperiled in BC by NatureServe. As always, I’ll update this post if my ID was incorrect or confirmed.
Good trip. On returning to work on Tuesday, I checked my remaining vacation time off for the year and despite the time I’ll be using for my upcoming trip to New Caledonia and NZ, I have a few extra days available. Think I’ll cram in another local trip or two. This was too good. I do wish BC Ferries wasn’t such a horror show, I’d sure love to go to the island…
BC Moths 