Newport Forest Night Life

A few days ago I joined Kee Dewdney for an evening of black lighting at Newport Forest. This site is located in Elgin County along the south side of the Thames River. It was a former farming operation, but had some fairly extensive and intact forest and stream habitat still present. Kee and his wife Pat acquired this property a couple of decades or so ago, but in recent years have turned over the long-term future of it to the Thames Talbot Land Trust. All of the former farmed land has been either left to regenerate on its own, or had thousands of trees planted on it. It is quite an amazing complex of varied habitats.

Kee and Pat have been building an on-site list of all the flora and fauna they can discover. So it was with that in mind that I took my black light out to the site and met up with Kee, hoping that we could add to the biological inventory. We each had our own light set up a short distance apart, with the hopes that two lights were better than one.

We were not disappointed.

Here are a few of the creatures I was able to photograph at one light or the other. Some of the names are obvious, but for the others, someone had some really creative thoughts!

As is often the case, many moths do not have bright colours. What good are they in a dark, night-time environment?  But the patterns are quite intricate, and some moths are incredibly colourful as you will see farther down the page. Admittedly being towards the later part of the season, some moths look quite worn and not as vibrant looking as they would have a few weeks ago. And that only adds to the challenge of identifying them.

Clover Looper

Bristly Cutworm

Black-banded Owlet

Green Cloverworm

Brown-collared Dart

Large Mossy Glyph

Yellow-haired Dagger

Aster-head Eucosma

Arcigera Flower Moth

Hickory Stem Borer

Oblique-banded Leafroller

Red-banded Leafroller

Gold-striped Leaftier

Pale Lichen Moth

There are always numerous non-moth creatures that come to visit. Many of are nondescript black beetle types, some of which are very tiny and difficult to identify using a single photo. But other creatures are nice for variety and more easily identified.

Alder Spittlebug

Citrus Flatid Planthopper

 This next one is a colourful member of the Ichneumon Wasps. I don't know of a common name for it, but its scientific name is Acrotaphus wiltii. Since there doesn't seem to be a common name for it, we have unofficially decided to call it the Two-banded Ichneumon Wasp.

 This next one is a Mayfly of the Stenacron genus.

A Meadow Katydid type

A Robber Fly

 The one below is a type of Crane Fly. And in case you think that insects have a pretty easy life, check out the one below it.

 This isn't an Orange-headed Cranefly or something like that. The orange colour comes from a whole host of tiny mites that are living on this cranefly.

A type of Tree Cricket

Grape Leaffolder

Horned Spanworm

The aptly named Pale Beauty

Porcelain Gray with a much smaller Epiblema sp beside

Rigid Sunflower Borer

Sparganothis Fruitworm

 This next one looks fairly drab, and with its wings closed you have to look more closely at the pattern of various shades of grey to figure it out.

 When it opens its forewings and shows the usually hidden hindwings, it really shows its true colours. It is a member of the Underwing group, known as the Catocola group. This one is called 'The Sweetheart'.

 One of the highlights of this particular outing was to find and photograph this next one, the Glorious Habrosyne. It is considered an uncommon species throughout its northeastern range, and especially in Ontario.