I don't really have favourites, but….

You know, the hairstreaks may be my favourite group of butterflies, if I could ever manage to pick such a thing. The big, showy guys definitely have a lot going for them, but there's something very rewarding about tracking down what looks like a small, drab brownish thing and discovering once you're close that it's not drab at all.

Banded Hairstreak

Coral Hairstreak

Acadian Hairstreak

Bees Ahoy

There really are an astonishing number of bees. I don't think I fully appreciated that until I started paying a bit more attention to that whole group of insects. How the heck did the honey bee get all the fame and glory when you've got gorgeous little things like this flying around?

Bicolored Striped Sweat Bee (Agapostemon virescens)

And let's talk bumble bees. Those fuzzy little blimps that really shouldn't be able to fly. I know that a lot of people don't realize that it's not just The Bumble Bee, singular, but have a look at this ID chart if you really want to go down that rabbit hole.

Here's just the ones that I've found close to home, within a relatively short time of actually looking:

Two-spotted Bumble Bee (Bombus bimaculatus)

Northern Amber Bumble Bee (Bombus borealis)

Common Eastern Bumble Bee (Bombus impatiens)

Brown-belted Bumble Bee (Bombus griseocollis)

Tricolored Bumble Bee (Bombus ternarius)

Yellow-banded Bumble Bee (Bombus terricola)

Super obvious differences there, right? That's such a great help when you're trying to figure out a busy queen who won't sit still long enough to photograph (I have not yet graduated to catching bees in nets, that seems like something that comes with a steep learning curve full of stings). I love them, though. Bumbles are rapidly becoming some of my favourites.

Fundraising again, also spring is slow

Instead of my usual fundraising for the Bruce Trail, this year I'll be participating in the Carden Challenge:

Carden Challenge - Team Fundraising Page

I've been wanting to go to Carden for years now, and I'm looking forward to having the excuse to get my naturegeek on and really hunt out some interesting species. Loggerhead Shrikes and Upland Sandpipers and Smooth Green Snakes, oh my! My camera will be fully charged and working hard, hopefully I will have plenty of awesome photos to post after it's done.

On a more local and immediate note, lawdy but spring feels slow this year. We've been getting some warm days but most of the nights are still hovering close to zero, so the spring ephemerals are only just starting to come up at the Arboretum. Realistically, I'm sure it's not significantly slower progress than any other year, but I am impatient and therefore it feels like spring should have kicked in weeks ago.

Shameless Plug!

This right here is an excellent example of why I love iNaturalist so much:

Holy Mola! The oral history of an inat identification.

People collaborating from halfway around the world to document a rare species occurrence in real time. iNat is such a fantastic resource in that regard - not only the database of observation records submitted to the site, although that certainly is a wealth of information for anyone studying a species, but the army of experts and informed hobbyists who help confirm everyone's IDs. It's an excellent educational tool if you're looking to get better at ID or just curious as to what things are living around your home; you don't have to be an expert yourself to post observations, you just have to be able to take a decent photo.

Interesting Times

So the first point of business is that I'm doing another fundraiser for the Bruce Trail:

Hike-a-thon 2018!

It's not as ambitious as the last one; the only requirement is that I go hiking in the month of October, which I was going to do anyway. Going to be starting this weekend, in fact, with an overnight stay up near Collingwood so I can knock out hikes 4 and 5 of my Blue Mountains club end-to-end. Fingers crossed the forecast stays good. I don't expect to get the top prize for most kilometers hiked, since I'll be limited to weekend trips, but October is always a beautiful time to hike so it's still a win.

Second point of business, as a personal update: I have a new job, starting in a couple of weeks. Well, the job itself will be basically the same (I think) but it's with a new company. And it's in my own city so after over a decade of driving I will have no more commute. Change is scary, so I'm still nervous about the whole thing, but I'd have been really, really dumb to turn down this opportunity. Hopefully it all works out.

And finally, on a lighter note, I'm already starting to get itchy for another vacation. Am halfway considering going back to Scotland and somehow hopping around the outer islands... really, the way to do that would be via something like this "Scotland Slowly" cruise, being on a boat would greatly simplify getting around and allow access to places with limited to no human presence. However, I have to wonder if I'd regret not being out and about in the local colour, so to speak... being aboard a cruise ship seems kind of isolating from the place you're trying to see? And getting all your meals on the ship means not getting to sample local restaurants. I'm undecided if this is really the route I want to take with that trip, although the whole point is moot for at least a year; it's probably inadvisable to ask for a chunk of time off in June at the new job in my very first year, since that's typically the busiest time in my particular profession. Next year might have to be more low-key, small local trips or something in the off season.

I can start dreaming for 2020, though, right?

Okay, Let's Do This.

Insects! Let's do this chronologically, shall we? Starting in Edmonton:

A terrible photo, but still diagnostic of Common Ringlet.

I'm calling this one a Western White, based on the pattern on the
 forewing and the dark scaling visible on the hindwing. Closest alternative
would be Checkered White but that one has a cleaner hindwing.

Milbert's Tortoiseshell

Canadian Tiger Swallowtail, set apart from the other two practically
identical Tiger Swallowtails based entirely on range.

Four-spotted Skimmer; the wing details don't show well here, but the
way the abdomen looks kind of flat and shades towards black at the end
is pretty diagnostic too.

And now to Yellowknife:

Forest Tent Caterpillar; startlingly pretty for such a pest. Also far more
orange than I'm used to, but it's apparently still the same species.

Boreal Whiteface; the only other Whiteface in that area with that much red
 spotting down the abdomen is apparently the Hudsonian, which would not
have that final red spot on S8 (i.e., the abdominal segment third
from the end). Apparently it's also larger, but without seeing the
two of them side-by-side I find that harder to use as an ID feature.

Either a Northern or Boreal Bluet, apparently those two are practically
indistinguishable unless you look at very specific tiny features with a
hand lens. Which I obviously did not do. But my gut's leaning towards
Boreal based on what can be seen of the appendages at the end of the tail.

Mosaic Darners are the worst. This lovely thing? I have no idea what it
is because a) it's a female, and b) I couldn't get a clear shot of the
lateral stripes (i.e., a side view without the wings in the way).

Spear-marked Black Moth. Yep, it's a moth, even though it doesn't have
fuzzy antennae.

This one I think is the Hudsonian Whiteface, because the red spotting is a little
more discrete (more spots, less of a line) and stops one segment further up than
on the Boreal. Is it also smaller? Who knows!

Gruesome, but easy to photograph - and this one's a male, which helps. The
broad, notched thoracic stripes with the just-barely-visible pale spot between them
make this a Lake Darner. Honestly, the last one was probably also a
Lake but I'm just not confident enough to make that call.

Another Four-spotted Skimmer, so we can all admire the wing pattern.

Arctic Blue; this one was a pretty easy call based on the brownish tinges
and just the overall degree of white-ringed dark spotting.

Yet another Whiteface. Only the barest hint of red spots down the abdomen,
though, so given the location it's either a Canada or a Belted Whiteface. More info
needed to say for sure: the Canada apparently has a "creamy" white face as
opposed to the "chalk" white face of the Belted. Sure. And the Canada is smaller, but
we've already covered how useless that can be without something for scale.

I had this one pegged as a Silvery Blue at first, but I think now it's a Greenish
Blue. The spots are smaller, they're not really ringed in white the way they would
be on a Silvery, and there's a dark spot on the upper side (not shown here, but I
have it in another photo) that just really shouldn't be there on a Silvery.

American Emerald; plain dark abdomen with a single white ring, bright green
eyes, and bronze-green 'shoulders'.

Based on very limited information I called this one a Giant Sulphur at first, but
I think what we have here is actually a Palaeno Sulphur, aka a Moorland Clouded
Yellow. The key features are the complete lack of border on the white hindwing
spot, and the dusting of dark scales all over the hindwing underside.

Mourning Cloak

If you made it this far, I think I owe you a cookie.

Any Excuse For A Book

So the reason I've been delayed in finalizing the insect species from my recent trip is that all of my books are for eastern North America or the Great Lakes region… not terribly useful when trying to figure out species from the Northwest Territories.

Clearly what I needed to do was buy more books. Obviously.

The dragonfly book is the western equivalent of my beloved eastern go-to guide - the one with the excellent species comparisons - so it was an easy sell. I'll just have to take more western vacations and get my money's worth out of it. The butterfly book I'm going to have to sit with for a while and see if it's what I wanted it to be… it's an older book but came highly rated, I feel like it won't go astray.

Stay tuned!