Insects of Alberta 1

As usual, I'm not sure of the ID for this butterfly, seen yesterday afternoon at Nodwell Sanctuary, outside Calgary.

I helped at a Leafy Spurge "pull" this morning, trying to remove some of these invasive plants from down near the Bow River at Fish Creek Park. When this plant is growing, it means that native plants can't grow there. Couldn't resist photographing this bright little Ladybug on the top of one of the Leafy Spurge plants. Erika's mum, if you see and read this, this is what Erika was busy doing this morning! She mentioned that she had given you the link for my Flickr photostream - hope you enjoy seeing some of the beautiful things that you may have seen when you were here in Canada, visiting Erika and family.

One of the very small butterflies that add beauty to my walks in the local natural areas. Every spring, these tiny butterflies appear, flitting not far above the ground. I'm not sure exactly what kind of Blue this is - not sure if its a Spring Azure or something else. There are 15 species of blue butterflies in Alberta.

We saw this brightly coloured caterpillar on a walk this morning, its bright red head shining in the sun. Or maybe this is not the head end but a distraction to predators? Haven't identified this yet. Later: thanks to Doug (dougwaylett, flickr name), this caterpillar has been identified as that of the Police Car Moth.

Saw this small moth yesterday morning in Fish Creek Park. It looks very similar to the Eight-spotted Forester Moth I saw once, but I don't think it is the same. To me, it almost looks as if the white "spots" are in fact holes, allowing the leaves to be seen though them.

We saw this little spider eating its lunch a few days ago. I have seen them before on wild roses. They can change colour to match their background, but I guess this one was so focussed on food that it "forgot" to change colour, LOL!

Saw this very small butterfly when I was on a walk on Sunday afternoon. Not sure if it is a Northern Pearl Crescent.

We saw these two Western Tailed Blue butterflies on a recent walk at Shannon Terrace in Fish Creek Park.

Came across this beautifully irridescent Long-horn beetle a couple of days ago, at the Weaselhead natural area. I often check wild roses to see if one of these small beetles is hiding out there and this time I was lucky.