Moth Season 2020 has Begun!

As anyone who has read my blog for a while will know, I'm a big fan of moths.  Each year, I look forward to finding new and different species of moths, along with enjoying the familiar ones.  It's kind of funny that I like moths, considering that I also use a lot of wool yarn, but there are only a few species of moths that actually lay their eggs on wool and other animal fibres.  I'm not very interested in those ones!

I'm also developing greater interest in bees (especially native bee species), beetles, and other interesting insects I find in the yard.  There is so much biodiversity just in my own yard.  I don't need to travel or even leave my yard to find a wealth of interesting species.  Today, I wanted to share some of the best of my observations of the past week.  I catalogue all of them on iNaturalist, and you'll see that as a running widget on my blog, but here are some of the highlights!

Here's a lovely tri-coloured bumble bee (Bombus ternarius) enjoying a dandelion.  I get a lot of these bees at this time of the year, and many right now are queens.

This is a three-banded lady beetle that I found in my greenhouse building.

This is a species of nomad bee.  They are solitary bees that lay their eggs in other bees' nests.  Bad behaviour!

Another kind of lady beetle, but this one is the fourteen-spotted lady beetle.  As you can see, it's white and black, rather than red and black.

One of my favourite moths is the ruby tiger moth (Phragmatobia fuliginosa).  It's such a rich red-brown colour and has such a fluffy "mane" around its head.

This is a metallic flea beetle.  The colour is just amazing!  They are difficult to identify down to a species level.

This funny looking cutie is the American lappet moth (Phyllodesma americana).  I think it looks like it's wearing a dress.  This is an easily recognizable moth that is quite widespread.

This is the olive and black carpet moth (Acasis viridata).  No, they don't eat carpet!  I love the colours on this one also.

This colourful critter is the red cross shield bug (Elasmostethus cruciatus).  They feed on alder, and I have a lot of alder around here!

There are a group of flies called bee flies, which look like bumble bees in some ways, but they are smaller, and not at all related to bees.  This one is the pygmy bee fly (Bombylius pygmaeus).  It has a long proboscis (mouth part) like a straw for drinking nectar.  

This is a colourful zale moth (Zale minerea).  I know it's just browns and creams, so not exactly colourful, but the patterns are amazingly beautiful in my opinion.

This one is actually colourful!  It's a Comstock's sallow (Feralia comstocki).

I had never seen one of these beetles before today.  It's the ribbed pine borer beetle.

This is the otter spiramater moth (Spiramater lutra).  Again, it's a beautiful moth even though it's mostly just brown and black.  

Not everybody likes insects, but I think they're missing out on a lot of beauty if they don't stop to take a closer look sometimes!  

Insect Appreciation: Some Beautiful Visitors and a New (to me) Species!

As most of my regular readers know, I have a strong interest in all life forms, bugs included.  Here's a round-up of a few of my more interesting recent visitors.

This is a round-headed apple borer (Saperda candida).  It is a super cool-looking striped beetle, but I am really not pleased to see it.

My little apples are coming along on my 4-in-1 apple tree.  I have some 1 akane, 2 honeycrisp and 3 liberty apples.  The chehalis branch didn't have any blossoms this year.  So I will be keeping an eye out on the apple tree to ensure that the larvae of this beetle do not cause problems.

This beauty is a great spangled fritillary butterfly (Speyeria cybele).  I was delighted to see it and it was very kind about posing for photographs.

It was enjoying some nectar from my foxglove blossoms.

The white-looking patches on the hindwing are actually metallic-silver looking in the sunlight.  It's a really gorgeous butterfly.

Here's a new bee species that I didn't know about before photographing it and learning about it.  It's called the European Wool Carder Bee (Anthidium manicatum) - a particularly appropriate bee to have in my yard, considering my fondness for wool.

The bee has been given this name because it harvests hairs from leaves, such as from lamb's ears or other hairy-leaved plants, for its nest.  It lays eggs into the hairy nest, and provides a supply of nectar and pollen, which the baby bees eat after hatching.  It's a European bee species that was introduced to Canada sometime in the mid-20th century.

Interestingly, the males of this species tend to display territorial behaviour with flowering plants.  They ward off males to ensure they can mate with females that come to the territory.  I observed this bee flying around my foxglove plants without actually settling anywhere, which seems consistent with its territorial behaviour.  It even chased away the butterfly I shared in the pictures above.

Finally, because I am a bit moth-crazy, here are a couple of recent beauties to visit my porch.  This is the double-banded carpet moth (Spargania magnoliata).

This is the blinded sphinx (Paonias excaecata).

And this is the fingered dagger moth (Acronicta dactylina).   I think its face looks a bit like an owl.