The Painted Lady (Vanessa cardui ) is likely the most numerous species of butterfly in the world, and one of the most widespread.  It inhabits both the new and old worlds, most of the northern hemisphere and some of the southern.  In North America it is a regular breeder in the deserts of the southwest and Mexico.  In some years there is a migration northward and millions of Painted Ladies are on the move.  Included in these are the ones that reach B.C. - usually in the early spring and looking quite ragged.  Here they breed, and their offspring emerge as butterflies in July, often larger than the migrants that were their parents.  

It is thought that these butterflies seldom are able to overwinter and do not migrate back southward,  so it is a dead-end for the population  and we rely on a new wave of immigrants for our next crop of Painted Ladies.  This is an early date for a 'fresh' Painted Lady for us, July 1 - no doubt the result of record high June temperatures on southern Vancouver Island this year.

The Long-haired  June Beetle is a large (up to 3 cm) beetle that I associate with very warm summer nights.  This beetle spends most of its life as an underground grub feeding on roots.  In sandy soils they can be a pest on orchards, and here they can do some damage to strawberry patches.  Adults are leaf feeders, although they seldom consume enough to become pests. The genus  name (Polyphylla ) means many-leaf , referring to the peculiar antennae of the male.  When stressed the male folds the separate "leaves" of the antennae together, as shown in this picture.  When relaxed (he didn't get to the relaxed state during the photography session), they separate into a series of leaves, like the slats of a venetian blind.  These structures are used to detect female pheromones.  Larvae can take as long as four years to reach the adult form.  This species (P. crinita) looks very similar to the Ten-striped June Beetle (P. decemlineata), but that species is rarely, if ever,  found on Vancouver Island.

 
This introduced species of wasp is from the western US States. The galls are tiny, pin head sized round galls that form the house and shouldn't be confused with the other species of gall often found on Garry Oak (#24).  On Vancouver Island it was first found in 1986, and it is assumed to have been introduced here.  

Inside the gall, the larvae of the wasp is curled into a "C" shape, eventually reaching 1.5 mm long.   The larvae lives inside the gall feeding on the interior of the gall wall.

The jumping gall wasp (Neuroterus saltatorius) completes two generations each year. The first generation is "gamic", consisting of both males and females, while the second generation is made up of  only females. The first generation is started by the females emerging from underground and laying up to 150 eggs in the swelling buds of Garry Oak in the second half of March.  Adults emerge from these galls in the first half of May. Some clumps of galls produce males and other females, but not both. 
Females are darker, with more rounded abdomens than males.

After mating, a gamic female lays up to 70 eggs one at a time,  on the underside of the leaf, preferring the most recently formed unhardened leaves at the end of the branches. In early June the "agamic" generation have hatched and  tiny galls begin to form on the lower surface of the leaf  and by mid-June many of these galls have matured into mustard seed-like galls,  1.0–1.5 mm  in diameter.

  The galls start to fall off the leaf in late June to mid July with a small  number dropping off in August and September. 
Once on the ground the curled larvae flexed and the flexible walls of the round gall move.  The purpose of this movement is to work the gall into the soil to overwinter there.  Often however, the gall jumps from this flexing motion, hence the name.  On dry July days you can hear the noise of jumping galls  as they move and land on the dry leaf litter. The "jumping period" can last for 8 weeks.  The wasp pupates in the gall, underground and is fully adult inside the gall by October, but stays inside until spring. 

Heavily infested trees can have a scorched appearance by mid summer, and it can cause leaf drop.  An excellent extenion pamphlet on the life history of this species can be found by clicking here.

Running Crab Spider (Philodromus dispar) is a common crab spider found in trees and bushes at Leaning Oaks.  It is a" sit-and-wait" predator and hunts by ambushing its prey.  It does not build a web (what looks like a web in this photograph are actually reflections of its legs on a thermopane window ).  Males are a shiny black or dark brown with a white edging, females are much more variable in both size and colour.   As you can see the palps are large on this species (making it look like it is wearing boxing gloves). This male was photographed hunting at night on the sliding glass doors on the house, no doubt attracted to the insects lured by the lights inside the house.  It is yet another introduced invertebrate from Europe.

This is another introduced Woodlouse from Europe, and a handsome one at that.  Striped Woodlice (Philoscia muscorum) are named for the dark stripe that runs down the back of the animal.  It's other common name the Fast Woodlouse is a reference to its ability to run more quickly than the other common woodlice. Native to Europe, it was been introduced into parts of North America, including Washington State and BC,  and New Zealand.

This behemoth of a beetle buzzed past like a wee helicopter before landing on my chest. All three centimeters barely fit in the collecting jar that just happened to be in my pocket (and at the same time releasing another beetle that was going to be way harder to identify!) The larvae of Chalcophora angulicollis feed on the dead wood of coniferous trees, including Douglas-fir. They start when the tree has just died or dying and though they may not be killing the tree, they will lower the value of the timber.  

When trying to find out any information that I could on this spectacular and heavy beetle I came across this great T-shirt with a beautiful illustration of the pine borer in flight. Nice eh ?

The taxonomy of this species has been in flux with a  similar one that occurs in the east (C. virginiensis) however it seems to have been reconciled using morphological characteristics and a distribution that has a big gap between them.

This bug is a "true bug" (order Hemiptera) and to make it even more straight forward, it is in the family "Miridae", the Plant Bugs.  Stenotus binotatus was introduced from Europe in the late 1800's.  The first North American records are from Massachusetts and they have spread across the continent since then. They can be a serious pest on wheat and other cereal crops, causing them to collapse. It produces an enzyme which will degrade the gluten and the dough produced from this wheat has a sticky characteristic. (Every, D., J.A. Farell and M. Stufkens 1992).

The older the individual, the darker the colour will be. Looking at the photographs of this grass bug on Bug guide I'd say this was a younger one. It was about 5-6 mm long and came in  to a sheet that we had a light focused on for attracting moths. It was so small that there was no way we could see the beautiful colours until the photograph was taken!

Every, D., J.A. Farrell and M.W. Stufkens. 1992. Bug damage in New Zealand wheat grain: the role of various heteropterous insects. NZ J of Hort and Crop Sci. 50. 305-312.

Ladona julia  is not common at Leaning Oaks and my suspicion is that this fellow is a visitor from a larger or boggier piece of water somewhere nearby. The English name comes from the two distinct stripes on the thorax -stripes of a corporal. These are more distinct in younger ones.  And of course the "chalk -fronted" refers to the pruinosity on the abdomen. Pruinosity in dragonflies is a waxy deposit - like what you get on Italian prune plums.

I learned this as Libellula julia, but some DNA sequencing (Kambhampati and Charlton 2002) determined that  this skimmer was indeed a separate genera within the Libellulidae family. 

You will see these chunky dragonflies sunning themselves on sticks facing the sun (like the photo), perching on vegetation over the water or flat on the ground when away from the water. This tendency to land on the ground distinguishes from the other big skimmers found in BC which seem to rarely do that.

This is the first year that we found a tiger lily on Leaning Oaks--and this is it. One lone stem with a single flower.  Lilium columbianum can have up to 30 flowers per stem. It ranges from B.C. to northern California and is commonly found in damp open woodlands and meadows from sea level to subalpine and  prefers well drained sandy soils. This surprise was under a tangle of ocean spray, Garry Oak and grasses in a rather rocky area. 

The bulb that tiger lilies grow from is a white  fleshy corm that has sections or scales sort of like a garlic bulb. The bulb is edible and was steamed, baked, mashed, boiled, eaten on its own, mashed with salmon roe, put in soups, dried in cakes and then used as seasonings; a lot of ways. I think that this corm is safe here. 

Mostly I was very excited as it meant that there was another easy showy flower to highlight after I thought that we done them all and that there was a few days reprieve from having to ID the six jillion grass species that are out there! 

California Quail (Callipepla californica) are noisy, visible parts of the avifauna of Leaning Oaks.  We have several pairs using the property this breeding season.  Some years they disappear for the winter months, and some years we have large groups visiting the bird feeders throughout the year.  They almost always successfully hatch chicks here, but some years the chicks succumb to wet weather and other years they are preyed on extensively by Cooper's Hawks.

California Quail are introduced species here, brought onto Vancouver Island as a game bird.

Western Ash Borer (Neoclytus conjunctus) is a handsome black and yellow beetle with long back legs that look like they were borrowed from a grasshopper.  It is a member of the Long-horned Beetle family and its larvae burrows into dead and nearly dead wood.  It feeds on Western Ash and Oak, but most commonly on Vancouver Island it uses Arbutus (#30).  It is often seen when arbutus firewood is being cut during the beetles flight season in late spring and early summer.  In flight the black and yellow stripes mimic a wasp, which is a good strategy. Peering at it's face (third photo), one wonders why it would want to mimic a terrier. 

There is a useful Oregon State University  extension note  by  M. Bennet and D. Shaw on diseases and insects found on Arbutus that can be found here.

What lurks beneath the bubbly mass? We had featured the Meadow Spittlebug previously (#117) and I had assumed that was what I was going to find, that common European introduction. Except that if you peer at the bubbles in the photograph to the left you can see that there is a bit of red showing. The keys and information on identification that we could find was mainly for the adults, so even this very spiffy nymph, it was difficult to get further than the genus. However, it was found below Douglas-fir, so based on host preference, it is quite likely to be Aphrophora permutata. They range from the Douglas-fir forests of southern B.C. to California. 
Apparently this genus holds the record for the number of nymphs in one goop of spittle; 100 in a glob 25 cm long! Or so says Andy Hamilton on BugGuide.  

Do check out the Meadow Spittlebug account for the story of the foam.  It really is cool! 

This is the most common and wide spread member of the Family Gnaphosidae. This is the family with the double exhaust pipes out the back, also known as spinnerets. Gnaphosa muscorum is rarely found in the open, but spends the day under logs and beneath the leaf litter, in moss and dirt, coming out at night to hunt. It is Holarctic in distribution, there being different subspecies as you circle the globe. 

Thanks (again!) to Darren and Claudia Copley for help with identification. 

This is a common fly in the early spring, with adults nectaring on a variety of meadow flowers here at Leaning Oaks.  They are round furry-looking flies that are very adept at hovering.  The adults are most  noticeable in March and April.   Bombylius major has an interesting life history;  the larvae are parasitoids on solitary bees, such as the Miner Bees.  Eggs are laid in or near the burrow of the bee and the larvae hatch and actively seek our the bee larvae in the burrow. In parts of Britain this group of flies are known as Beewhals, because of the long, tusk-like proboscis. 

Leah found two of these handsome lady beetles last week by beating the branch of a Douglas-fir.  Branch beating , where you give a branch a sharp rap or three with a stick and have the invertebrates on the branch fall onto a sheet or into a net, is a great way to see things you've completely overlooked.  Including Painted Lady Beetles (Mulsantina picta).  This is an extremely variable species, which ranges in colour from bright red to yellow to  solid brown.  These mottled individuals are particularly handsome.  Regardless of the colour the pattern on the middle section (the pronotal markings) of this  beetle is distinctive.  Yellow marking on the underside are also a good identification mark.
Not much is known about this lady beetle, it is assumed to eat scales and aphids and is found in conifers across North America.  

Now (April to June) is the time to be looking for the large skipper,   Erynnis propertius   nectaring on Garry Oak meadow flowers including camas, vetch and alliums.  Propertius Duskywings are just about exclusively tied to Garry Oak habitats. In B.C. that means that they are found on southern Vancouver Island and a few spots on the mainland. The larvae feed on the Garry Oak leaves and require the leaf litter below the trees to overwinter. Males will hang out on hilltops waiting for females. The dependence on Garry Oak meadow habitats means that this species is on the provincial Blue List (S3) because of a small range through the province and the threats that are associated with that habitat. The can be fairly abundant where found, although we rarely see more than an individual or two at anyone time and we haven't seen them every year. 

I always thought them a bit drab for a special species that we should get excited about - but looking at this glowing individual in the evening light at the top of the hill, I take that thought back. 

The subspecies of Yellow-Marsh Marigold we have at Leaning Oaks is   Caltha palustris var. palustris   and is introduced from Europe.  We orignally planted a single plant of this, along with a white flowered subspecies and a double-flowered form.  This one has naturalized around the edge of the pond and we now have several dozen of them and they put on a good show in the early spring.  In the Britain the plant is known by a myriad of colourful common names including mayflower, May blobs, mollyblobs, pollyblobs, water blobs, horse blobs, water blobs, water bubbles, balfae and "the publican".  Marsh-Marigold comes from the habit of using it to decorate churches at Easter,  where is was "Mary's Gold".  

Chipping Sparrows (Spizella passerina ) are the smallest sparrows that visit Leaning Oaks.  They are uncommon summer visitors here,  and to our knowledge have not bred on our property, although we have seen newly fledged young very close by.  This year provided our earliest spring record, with a pair on the lawn eating dandelion seeds on 23 April.  Our latest record in the year is the 2oth of July, so they don't linger here very long.  I have spent a lot of time listening to  recordings and searching for calling Chipping Sparrows, some of which sound an awful lot like (some) Dark-eyed Juncos.  Despite diligent study, I still make mistakes and feel far more sure of an identification when I see the bird involved.  Small, dapper and pale with a bright rufous cap, they don't look anything like a junco - fortunately.

Aack! Unbelievable! Rant, grumble, curse, stomp, stomp, pull, curse. How can there still be bloom sized broom anywhere on the property, let alone within easy sight of a main trail? When we arrived at Leaning Oaks 17 years ago, we faced a meadow of broom, thick and tall and blooming. What has ensued has been a non-stop (well, except when I did a severe back thing while pulling) commitment to annihilation of Cytisus scoparius.

We have seen tangible results - the meadow wildflowers are much thicker and widespread without the shading and space-sucking broom. It has been SO rewarding to see these increase over the years.

There are reasons that it is so pervasive.  The green, photosynthesizing stems enable the plants to continue happily along despite leaf loss due to drought or herbivory.  Each plant can disperse an average of 18 000 seeds and these seeds can live in the ground for up to  30 years after being spectacularly catapulted up to five metres away from the plant. I have seen figures like 42,000 seeds and 60 years, but there is a tendency for hyperbole when it comes to Scotch broom. 

Captain Walter Grant, a "homesick Scot" that lived in Sooke seems to get most of the blame for the introduction of this plant in 1851 from seeds that he picked up on the Sandwich Islands. It was the next owner of the property in 1853, Anne Muir, that apparently insisted that the three plants that had sprouted be kept as they reminded her of her home in Scotland. This plant that is now is found on much of the island and mainland to the Kootenays and south to California had multiple introductions. John Murray writes that when he arrived in Fort Victoria in 1849, there was at the base of Beacon Hill a "here and there growing luxuriantly, a bunch of broom".  This introduction is attributed to Governor James Douglas and some seeds that he had picked up in Oregon.  It is also thought that seeds arrived via the rocks and dirt that were used as ballast in ships.  The ships would dump this load willy nilly and was a source of many plant introductions here and particularly on the east coast. The late 1800's were a great time for an invader that loved disturbed soil and freshly logged patches - this was happening all around southern Vancouver Island!

Scotch broom was planted extensively along road ways, banks and below power lines for stabilization; it was perfect as it grows very quickly and is drought tolerant, spreads (duh) and the long roots do a great job of holding the soil.

For a fabulous read on the human history of broom and the myriad of ways that broom, and other European seeds were easily available and the people behind the broom,  "Glistening Patches of Gold" by Troy Lee.  I could go on and on with the tidbits that I learned from this essay. 

There are a couple of species of Cladara that are apparently almost indistinguishable, and photographs alone will not allow identification. Except that there is only one that is found on Vancouver Island, Cladara limitaria. I like that when it happens. The other, by the way, should you be looking at green blotched geometrids somewhere else is C. anguilineata. The larva feed on conifers and the adults generally fly April to June.  Please imagine the background as a particularly artistic rendition of the star lit night sky in which this critter flies.