April 22nd

Last night there was one new species for the year and 6 Speckled Green Fruitworms (Orthosia hibisci).  The new species was an Orthosia segregata (no common name that I can find).  This is an expected moth species for this time of the year.  Nothing in the bait trap yet apart from a good number of flies…

Some different moths at last…

There were a couple of new backyard moths for the year in the light trap this morning.  One was a Thaxter's Pinion Moth (Lithophane thaxteri).  This was a good record as I have only seen this moth once before on the 22nd Oct 2013.  The other new species for the year was an Alfalfa Looper (Autographa californica).  This was my earliest record for this moth by a few days.  Of course, there were also the inevitable Speckled Green Fruitworm (Orthosia hibisci) moths.  8 in total.  I have the bait trap out as well now so we’ll see what that attracts.

April 16th Moth

Not many moths in backyard at the moment.  Just 1 Speckled Green Fruitworm (Orthosia hibisci) in the light trap this morning.  If the wind drops I’m hoping for more tonight.

The Olive Green Cutworm (Dargida procincta) below was taken on October 21st last year and was one of my latest moth records.  I thought I’d add this migrant American Wigeon photograph , taken yesterday, for some colour.  The bird migration is underway…

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.