Sleepy visitor

It has been a distinctly unbuggy summer. I have seen few spiders besides the cellar spiders and a couple or three jumping spiders, (and I'm always searching for spiders), a couple of dozen bees, a few beetles (three ladybugs, I think), some weevils, one cricket. Ants and sowbugs and cabbage white butterflies are easy to find, but their numbers are low this year. And moths; every now and then one of those tiny, 1/4 inch ones shows up in a cellar spider's web. Even the fruit flies have been missing. 

I haven't seen any of the usual orange underwings, or other large moths, until yesterday. (I checked; the last moths I've photographed was in September of last year.) This one turned up waiting at my door after yesterday's rain.

Orange underwing moth, Noctua pronuba.

Her head looks almost sparrow-like.

And a cross spider has moved into my carport! Photos tomorrow.

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Este año, hay una escasez de insectos y arañas. Aparte de las arañas fólcidas no he visto más que unas cuantas arañas salterinas. (Eso que siempre ando buscando arañas.) De los insectos, unas pocas docenas de abejas, algunos escarabajos (creo que tres mariquitas) y gorgojos, un solo grillo. Las hormigas y las mariposas Pieris rapae y las cochinillas si se pueden hallar, pero en números muy reducidos en comparación con años anteriores. De las mariposas nocturnas, aparece una de las miniaturas de 2 mm de largo cada cuando, en la red de una de las arañas. Hasta las moscas de la fruta, que siempre proliferan, han desaparecido.

De las mariposas nocturnas grandes, de las que antes encontraba grandes números durmiendo en las paredes en la mañana, no había visto ni una este verano. (La última que había fotografiado fue en setiembre del año pasado.) Ayer, después de la lluvia, esta me esperaba a la puerta.

Dos fotos de la mariposa nocturna,Noctua pronuba. La cara hasta tiene un aspecto de pájarito.

¡Y una araña Araneus diadematus se ha construido su telaraña en la cochera! Mañana habrá fotos.

Buggy day

Life goes on here, quietly. It's too hot to move*; even the bugs are in hiding. The sowbugs that frequent my collection of plants on the kitchen windowsill have moved elsewhere. Spiders lurk only in the darkest, coolest corners. The slugs have even abandoned the damp, broken flowerpot I set out for them, with murderous intent.

And then, in one 24 hour period, I had a stream of visitors. Maybe it's cooler inside.

The first. 2 AM, just over my bed. Tiny, but pretty.

Orange underwing moth on a dusty window. Most of the dust is outside. 10AM

From another angle, with her double reflections. The sun was bright this morning; the pink and green are refracted sunlight.

A small male crane fly with the greenest eyes ever. 5PM 

Midnight, resting under a lamp. An extremely small green fly. To my eyes, it was just an elongated speck.

Besides these, that day there was an interesting pale orange moth in an awkward place, that I could not reach to get in focus. A couple of mosquitoes; not interesting. A racing house spider, trying to escape the kittens. And a humongous crane fly that the cats beat me to. The smallest kitten ate it. And the June bug.

And today, we're back to lying low. The whole area is under an alert for hot weather, and there's a smoke haze wafted over from the burning mainland. Will these fires never cease?

Special air quality statement in effect for:
Campbell River
Comox Valley
Duncan
Nanaimo/Parksville
...
The Ministry of Environment and Climate Change Strategy, in collaboration with Island Health, has issued a Smoky Skies Bulletin for communities in the East Vancouver Island, the Southern Gulf Islands, and Greater Victoria regions due to wildfire smoke in the area. The current weather pattern over the BC coast is causing outflow winds to carry smoke from wildfires burning in the BC Interior towards the coast. Smoke concentrations will vary widely as winds, fire behaviour and temperatures change....
This Bulletin will remain in effect until further notice. (from gov. alert)

Higher pollution levels are expected to persist into Friday.

* I know, a temperature of 34 Celsius is not hot at all, if you're living where 40 is normal. But around here, we wilt at 30. To make up for it, we go out for long walks in pouring rain or deep snow.

Bug-eyed, horned, masked caterpillar

In the middle of last December, halfway between that sudden cold snap and the first (maybe only) snowfall of the winter, I brought in a few dead, frozen maple leaves to see what had survived the freezing weather. This little caterpillar turned up on one, as energetic as if he had been soaking up the sun and eating green leaves instead of the half-rotted variety available at the time.

Larva of a yellow underwing moth, Noctua pronoba

Face view. Laurie says he looks threatening. He's not, unless you're a leaf.

Back view.

And there was a bonus: a springtail on chilly moss.

Orchesella cincta, possibly. Doesn't mind the cold, either.

Quick post on a busy day.

Worked late. Going antiquing. Have a moth.

Orange underwing, much frayed, on my wall.

Just another orange underwing . . .

. . . on my curtain

"Mind if I rest here for a bit?"

. . . and on my desk:

Love those square knees!

"Ok, now would you mind opening the door for me? Thanks."

I let him out and he flew off to sleep under a leaf.

(And there's a heart in his feathers, for Clytie.)

Well-dressed

With the warmer weather, moths have started to appear. During the day, orange underwings sleep in hidden corners; when I reach for a garden tool, a panicky moth flies out of the bucket; move a chair and another one erupts from the underside of the armrest. Laurie caught me one.

On my desk, she escaped as I tried to transfer her to a glass-lidded box. But she stopped quickly, and stood there, unmoving, fascinated by my lamp:

As if she were posing for her portrait, all decked out in a creamy cap and feathery antenna.

When I moved the camera around for a face shot, she shook herself once and flew away. After a bit of wandering about, she settled on the curtain, and obligingly showed off a bit of her orange wings.

The second pair of wings is usually exposed only in flight.

Wings closed, in normal sleeping position. I love the warm colours and the gold and beige trim; I'd love to have that in fabric. It would make a beautiful jacket, wouldn't it?