Summary of my Calgary Backyard Moth Species for 2014As 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:
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:
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.
White-faced IbisI've been trying to get some reasonable photographs of White-faced Ibis for some time and so was very pleased when I managed to follow a flock of approximately 15 birds to a marshy landing spot east of Calgary. After feeding for 30 minutes or so I lost sight of them as they continued their southward migration.
Eared Grebes taking care of their chicks
Eared Grebe chicks take a ride on their parents back. These photographs were taken at a small marsh east of Calgary.
Snow and a few more August mothsThe 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 UnderwingsWith 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.
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
