Awesome Acro Action! : November 2020

15/11/2020 : Bell 

With the Blue Mountains weather forecast being perfect (sunny with very light winds) I just had to go back to Bell to look for Ant Blues again. As soon as I got off the train I got that feeling that it was going to be a good day, mainly because I was pestered by flies before I even left the platform. They may be annoying, but I’ve found that the days with lots of flies tend to be the better days on the hilltops, so there was a spring in my step as I walked the few kilometres to the hill.

This time the first aurata started flying not long after I arrived, so I took a few photos of him and various other insects to get my eye in. The next butterfly I saw really got my attention as I thought it might be a Small Ant-blue (Acrodipsas myrmecophila), a small and rather drab – but elusive – butterfly that was one of my main targets for the day. One became two, but I began to have my doubts as their hyperactive behaviour and refusal to remain settled as I approached was not typical of myrmecophila. After several attempts I got close enough to one to see what he was – a Two-spotted Line-blue (Nacaduba biocellata), an equally small butterfly.

Next to arrive was a brisbanensis, so I took a couple of photos for the record before the hilltop erupted as every male aurata in the vicinity started chasing about madly. A female had made her way to the hilltop and the males were all competing for her attention. After a few minutes of turmoil she swiped right and then settled down to mate with her lucky suitor. They seemed to be having some difficulty, so initially it looked as if they were attempting some strange position from the “Acro Sutra”, but at the second try they managed a more conventional coupling.

Some time later a second female appeared and the males all went bananas again, just for a short time until one of them was able to jump her exoskeleton. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to get worthwhile shots of this pair; the male was clearly visible but the female was hidden behind a load of leaves.

Next I saw the biocellata again, sitting near the top of the tallest tree of the hilltop – not very high up as the tree is no more than 3 metres high. I was so engrossed with the aurata couples that I didn’t give this other butterfly much thought, until I noticed that it had remained stationary for quite some time. A closer look showed this to be a myrmecophila, making this the second occasion that I’d seen the three species of Ant-blue at the same time on this hilltop. I wanted him to come lower down, so a hundred times I shook his tree to get him to move and a hundred times he flew around for a few seconds before returning to the same perch. Fortunately the light was good and there was little wind, so I took a series of photos of him clinging to his little branch. After a few minutes of this he deigned to fly down a couple of feet and settle among some leaves, fortunately in a place where I could still get a clear view of him.

I saw one more interesting species that day – two male Large Brown Skippers (Hesperilla trimaculata) were scooting around at ground level in an open area; these were the first hilltopping skippers I’d seen in the Blue Mountains this season. Despite the good conditions none of the photos I took of them were much good, but it didn’t matter. After seeing all those Ant-blues, especially the females and the myrmecophila, it had been a very successful day’s Butterhiking.