Tag: Bowen Island
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Pseudobryomima muscosa
It’s satisfying that after 8 years of actively observing moths at my home, I still see new species. When I got back from my trip to Golden last Saturday I set up traps to see which of the locals had returned. In the morning I found a particularly perplexing little Noctuid which I’d never seen…
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500 Bowen leps
Continuing the streak of milestones, this morning I got my 500th lepidoptera for my home, Bowen Island. Pretty one too. Adelphagrotis indeterminata Up until now I’ve only seen Adelphagrotis stellaris, all seen here on Bowen as well.
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1,000 BC leps
This afternoon I got my 1,000th BC Lep: a Morophagoides burkerella, chilling in one of my pheromone traps. Year goal: check! A nice round number. 88 were butterfly, the rest were moths. The total count for species known in BC, as of today, is 2842. Guess I have long way to go!
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Pheromone lures
I thought I’d make a quick post about moth pheromone lures. My experience is limited but perhaps it may be of use to some people. I’ve been setting up light traps and sheets for about 6 years, but this year I thought I’d focus on diurnal species and try lures as a complement to the…
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Clearwings!
At long last my pheromone traps paid off, yielding no less than 4 individuals this afternoon: 3 Albuna pyramidalis (fireweed clearwing moth) and a lone Synanthedon novaroensis (Douglas-fir pitch moth). Frankly I’m so relieved. I ordered the lures back in January and I’ve tried them out here and there – no luck. I even wrote…
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Spring(ish)!
Well, I see April’s just around the bend and my 2024 BC leps list is depressingly sparse – a mere 24 species so far. But that’ll be changing soon. It’s been an odd year. Erratic weather, crises at home and never a spare moment. All in all there’s been very little time for mothing or…
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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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Sesiidae (Clearwing moths)
Other than that awful picture above, I’m really not doing well with the clearwings. Tackling these in reverse order: #3, I could give you handful of examples of getting a glimpse of a clearwing, then having it sod off and land behind a tree somewhere to have a cigarette and laugh at me. Last year…
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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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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…
BC Moths 