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Back in BC!
Ok fine, I actually got back home 10 days ago now, but returned during a huge snowstorm (in March!) which knocked out power to much of Howe Sound. Then right after that I came down with the flu. So a bit of a rocky return – and why I haven’t posted sooner. But it’s sure…
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Ethmia
This’ll probably be one of the final posts for a while. I’m heading to West Africa in under 3 weeks and I need to spend my time swotting up on the birds – and fixing the house! Like a lot of North America, we got hit by an intense cold wave which for us meant…
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Carposinidae
Just a very quick post. With the cold, we got hit by a prolonged power outage last week followed by several long days without water. Still waiting on the temperature to go up a bit before our water returns and I get a desperately, dearly needed shower, but until then we’re making do. Moth research…
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Macroglossinae
This is last of 3 posts on the subfamilies of the BC Sphingidae, the sphinx moths. There are 11 species in this subfamily in two tribes. Like my other posts on the Sphingidae, this’ll be a little light on photographs for now. I’ve only seen 4 members of this group. Dilophonotini The Hemaris are a…
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How to find a mothing spot
Warning: don’t be misled by the title. This post is less of a how-to as a how-it’s-hard-to. It wasn’t click-bait, honest. I’ll be spending a month in Creston later this year and as with all of my mothing trips I try to do my homework beforehand. The goals are always: get a better sense of…
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Sesiidae (Clearwing moths)
Other than that awful picture above, I’m really not doing well with the clearwings. I’ve only seen a single species There are oodles of them in BC They drive me nuts Tackling these in reverse order: #3, I could give you handful of examples of getting a glimpse of a clearwing, then having it sod…
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Sphinginae
The previous post tackled the Smerinthinae, a subfamily of the Sphingidae. This post looks at another: the Sphinginae. There are 9 species reported here in BC, though Agrius cingulata and Lapara bombycoides are unlikely to be seen – see below. I’ve only seen 4 species at this point, so this post will have a few…
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Smerinthinae
Let’s take a look at a subfamily of the Sphingidae (sphinx moths), the Smerinthinae. There are 6 species in the province, but iNat has a tantalizing 7th that was reported, incongruously out of range, somewhere in the Cariboo. Assuming the identification is correct it’s probably safe to say it arrived via anthropocentric means. But the…
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Ernest H. Blackmore Award
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),…
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2024 mothing plan
Last year I travelled quite a bit in the province seeing a whopping 642 species of moth – year in review post here. This year I was planning on doing more of the same. I’m spending most of February in Ghana, then possibly heading back to Ecuador in Sept/Oct (the moths were incredible there, but…
