Possible Hornet sightings in BC and WA's Journal

On Sunday I went down to Campbell Valley starting in the morning. My intention was to scout for places where it would be possible to see and identify an AGH, and to determine strategy for doing so.

My going theory is that walking the trails inside like the Loop trail will probably not be productive because of the limited visibility. You basically have to have a hornet fly right up to you in order to be able to see it in the trees. So what I did this time was start at the south lot, and go west around the south side, because it has lots of open fields bordering on the forest.

As I went past each of these fields, I noted that I could see dragonflies from quite a distance away, and the hornets should be about the same size as the big dragonflies, and their abdomens should be even thicker than the dragonflies. I also noticed that I can detect yellow on bumblebees flying a decent distance away. These two factors lead me to believe that IDing a hornet by sight across a field should be possible.

I also judged suitable habitat by rough presence of other insects. In this regard, I actually think the best spot might be the "meadow" inside the forest, reachable along the western side of the Loop trail. It has a lot more wildflowers, and a lot more bird and insect activity, so it just seems more abundant as a habitat.

Upcoming plans:

• head to Campbell Valley early (parking lot fills up by 9ish)
• just hang out in different spots of "the meadow" and keep an eye open.
  
• side benefit: plenty of birds and bees to find there, to keep things interesting.

I've heard several "maybes" in the Victoria area this week, still unconfirmed with no specimens or photos, but one of the people was trained in insect identification, so she knew the difference between mud daubers and sawflies, etc, and had previously worked as a beekeeper. There was another possible sighting in Saanich.

So, this is fairly interesting, since it basically implies that the Nanaimo nest was not unique, and that there may actually be nests all through the back country of the western side of the island all the way from Nanaimo down to Victoria, and the hornets are just now pushing into populated areas.

Hopefully if that's the case, we'll get some confirmation trappings soon. I look forward to hearing from anyone on the island who wants to help search via iNat.

Any nests that got started this year should be ramping up their worker populations fast now. We should hopefully have some new information soon, but currently there are no new sightings coming up anywhere. Once August hits, I'm gonna spend more time poking around Langley, but hopefully another sighting will come up so I know which neighbourhood to look in.

I still have a pretty good feeling about Campbell Valley though.

I plan to start searching specifically in Campbell Valley park since it seems to be suitable habitat and be right in the middle of all existing confirmed sightings. It might be fruitful to search specifically near the Langley or Custer sightings in case there's an established nest at either location, since there's only a limited daily range that workers would fly.

I don't have any research links on daily range of V. mandarinia, but I see that V. velutina has been found to range about 1km daily from the nest.

Checking likely habitat that is less densely populated seems like a strategy to bring in more useful information.