Sharing butterflies

Do you notice all the insects around you? If it wasn’t for my family bringing the creatures they notice to my attention I’d miss out on some wonderful experiences.

This week my husband pointed out a tiny butterfly of the Hesperiidae family, resting for the evening on our garage door. With brown/black wings folded back the butterfly was fairly non- descript. It wasn’t until I disturbed it that it opened out its wings to show the beautiful, black and orange banding, delicate feathering on the front area of its wings and body, and tiger stripes on its antennae. Being late in the afternoon the butterfly didn’t make any attempt to fly away and I returned it to the garage door soon after photographing it.

I think I’ve correctly identified the butterfly as a Western Grass-dart (Taractrocera papyria agraulia), one of the few Grass-darts listed as relatively common in the Perth area. They have a wing span of only 2cm and slight colour variations between the male and female butterflies which are often seen on the ground as the caterpillar feeds on various native and introduced grasses.

I am glad my family shares their finds with me. We live in an amazing world, with some beautiful creatures. Have you seen a similar species of butterfly living near you? Do you share the experience with friends and family?

Lots of lizards

On the weekend, a typical Perth, blue sky, sunny day, we went four wheel driving with a number of friends.  At one point, in the middle of the track was a large ‘sleepy Joe’, also known as a bob tail skink or blue tongue lizard. So we stopped to get it off the track before it was run over.  Of course everyone came to see why we’d stopped so suddenly.  With so many people around the lizard, it couldn’t be convinced to move in the right direction, so my husband picked it up to take it off the track.  As expected, the lizard wasn’t particularly happy about being handled, opened its mouth threateningly and showed that wonderful, distinctive blue tongue. 

Further along on our expedition I noticed something move behind one of the cars as they were trying to pull up off the main track.  I was out of the vehicle in a flash, camera in hand, so I could photograph a beautiful goanna with golden stripes on its belly.  Being one of Australia’s faster lizards, it didn’t hang around for long, raced off and ducked under a rock ledge.  My husband, who followed, stepped onto a large sheet of stone that rocked back and forth. Worrying that he might have crushed some wildlife under the rock, he lifted it, only to discover an amazing barking gecko.  Handling it gently, we checked that it hadn’t been hurt.  It hadn’t. It was photographed and released it.

Seeing these three completely different lizards was a great experience, especially as some of our friends were new to Australia and hadn’t seen anything like this before.  I particularly loved seeing the leaf gecko as I’d not seen one of these in the wild before, and geckos would have to be one of my favourite creatures. It just shows what you can see when you take the time to look around you when in the bush. Australia has lots of amazing lizards.

Just Wandering

I thought I’d start my first blog by talking about the wonderful 'butterflies' photo I’ve used as the backdrop for by blog. I love the contrasting colours with the brilliant blue Perth sky, the white of the grass tree flowers and the orange and black of the Monarch (Wanderer) Butterfly. The photo was actually taken by my 15 year old son (used with permission) when we went for a bush walk in the hills region of Perth.  

We stepped out into a clearing, with lots of wildflowers and grass trees in flower, nearly treading on the masses of butterflies.  They were everywhere. I’ve never seen so many butterflies in one place or anything so pretty before.  I raced off and grabbed the rest of our group to ‘come and see’.  This is the kind of nature experience that needs to be shared.