April Moths

Not too much to report for last week, although, I did find a new backyard micro moth on the door next to my light trap yesterday morning (11th).  I think the new micro is a Semioscopis inornata.  I found 2 common names for this moth.  The one used on the E.H. Strickland Entomological Museum is Dull Flatbody Moth and in the Peterson guide it is Plain Semioscopis.   I guess it is plain and could be considered Dull so you can take your pick…

With regards to macro moths, I had a single Large Grey Pinion (Lithophane georgii) in the trap on the 9th and 8 moths of 2 species in the light trap on the 11th.  The latter comprised  of 7 Speckled Green Fruitworms (Orthosia hibisci) and a new species for the year, a Western Swordgrass Moth (Xylena thoracica).

Strong winds kept my light trap inside last night and may keep it in tonight.

 

March 31st Backyard Moths

There were 3 moths of 2 species in the light trap on the 31st.  2x Dot-and-Dash Swordgrass (Xylena curvimacula) and 1x Speckled Green Fruitworm (Orthosia hibisci).  Since then cooler temperatures and strong winds have prevented me from putting the Light trap out.  Hopefully the weather will settle down again soon.

The photographs below were taken in 2013.

My First Backyard Macro Moth of 2015!

We’ve had a lot of warm weather recently but my light trap had remained stubbornly empty until last night when 2 Speckled Green Fruitworm (Orthosia hibisci) moths turned up.  This is my earliest ever record of a macro moth since I started mothing in 2007.  My previous early record was a Dot-and-Dash Swordgrass (Xylena curvimacula) on the 1st April 2013.  Hopefully, this is the start of an interesting mothing year.

Summary of my Calgary Backyard Moth Species for 2014

As the 2015 mothing season appears to be just around the corner, he says hopefully, I thought it was about time that I did an end of year summary for 2014…

The macro moth numbers were considerably down when compared to previous years but that is as much due to the number of times that I had the light and bait traps out as to anything else.  With vacations and bad weather I only had the light trap out 3 times in June!

Still the year was not a complete loss. I did record 133 species of macro moths, 7 of which were new records for my backyard.  As usual, these figures do not include a handful of species that I have not yet identified and some micro moths.

The new backyard species were:

Black-rimmed Prominent (Pheosia rimosa)
Leucania insueta
Brother Moth (Raphia frater)
Atlantic Arches Moth (Lacanobia atlantica)
Scripted Arches (Mamestra curialis)
Spruce Cone Looper Moth (Eupithecia mutata)
Spotted Grass Moth (Rivula propinqualis)

This brings my backyard macro moth list to 280.

The following is a summary of my most frequently record backyard moths.  No real surprises here:

Backyard Moths where the numbers counted were greater than 50
Common Name	Latin Name	Number
Glassy Cutworm	Apamea devastator	395
Thoughtful Apamea	Apamea cogitata	308
Bristly Cutworm Moth	Lacinipolia renigera	160
Olive Arches	Lacinipolia olivacea	109
Civil Rustic Moth	Platyperigea montana	83
Morrison's Sooty Dart	Pseudohermonassa tenuicula	71
Lesser Wainscot	Mythimna oxygala	65
Bronzed Cutworm Moth	Nephelodes minians	56
Mottled Rustic	Caradrina morpheus	53
Setaceous Hebrew Character	Xestia c-nigrum	53

Once again, a special thanks to Gary Anweiler and anyone else who helped with the ID’s.

The following photographs were taken in the Okanagan, although, I have seen these Sphinx moths in Alberta.

Snow and a few more August moths

The snow of last week has cleared and temperatures should reach the low 20’s Celsius for most of this week.  However, after 15cm of snow, severe frosts, temperatures as low as –4 and untold tree and damage I was quite surprised to find any moths in my light and bait traps trap this morning.  There was a single macro moth in my light trap yesterday but 5 moths of 5 species this morning.  I will blog about todays moths in a later post but here are a few more moths from the balmy days of August…

August – A good month for Underwings

With snow and temperatures barely above freezing, here in Calgary, the high temperatures of August already seem like a distant memory.  August was certainly my best month on record for Underwings.  On the 15th, 13 Underwings of 4 species in the bait trap was a record for my backyard.  I don’t think I’ve had any Underwings in the light trap this year but the bait trap has been very productive.  I’m not sure if it made a real difference but this was the first year that I used Pineapple.  Other ingredients were banana, grapes, a dash of maple syrup and any other fruit that came to hand… Actually, described like that it almost sounds like a nice desert recipe!  

The following are the 5 species of Underwing that  I have seen in my backyard this year.  The moth that I believe is a Once-married Underwing Moth (Catocala unijuga) was definitely the largest Underwing that I have seen.

August Moths

With no threat of storms, I finally managed to get the bait and light traps out last night.  The combined total this morning was approximately 110 macro moths of 30 species.  The bait trap paid off with a Charming Underwing Moth (Catocala blandula).  I’ve only had this species once before and didn’t manage a particularly good photograph previously so I was happy to get a second chance.  Other new backyard species for the year included  a Northwestern Phoenix (eulithis xylina) and a Dark-spotted Looper Moth (Diachrysia aereoides).  The Celery Looper (Anagrapha falcifera) photograph was the product of 6 stacked photographs while the Dark-spotted Looper  was the product of 5 stacked photographs.