Update : October 2020 - Australian Butterflies

It’s been a while since my last update, and that’s because there hasn’t been all that much to report. I’ve been out to a number of butterfly sites around Sydney this Spring, but there haven’t been many butterflies to see. I’ve had days where I walked for 6 or 7 hours and got no photos worth keeping. Rather than do several extremely boring updates I’m just going to do a quick summary of some of the highlights and lowlights…

13/09/2020 : Georges Hall

I wasn’t expecting to see much on this trip, I went mainly to see how the Crest Reserve was looking after last season’s drought. I’d last been there at the end of December 2019 and the vegetation had been suffering badly, so I was pleased to see the change since we started getting rainfall again. A couple of areas had burned during the summer, and the amount of small wattles regenerating there was almost incredible. I suspect that at some point there’ll be a population explosion of Imperial Hairstreaks (Jalmenus evagoras) and perhaps Stencilled Hairstreaks (Jalmenus ictinus) too.

There weren’t many butterflies around. My only interesting finds that day were 3 or 4 Bright Coppers (Paralucia aurifera); I’d only previously seen Dull Coppers (Paralucia pyrodiscus) in this reserve.

23/09/2020 : Lawson

I went to the North Lawson Park specifically to look for Copper Pencilled Blues (Cyprotides cyprotus); this was the first place I ever found cyprotus and I’ve seen them there most years since then.

The weather forecast had predicted it would be a fine sunny day, but a little bit cool, which I had hoped would make my subjects be approachable and more likely to sit with their wings wide open. Unfortunately the wind was a lot stronger than the forecast, which made it much more difficult to photograph butterflies.

I must have seen about a dozen male cyprotus in total, all of which kept their wings closed when settled in order to reduce the buffeting from the wind. As I don’t need underside shots I was beginning to resign myself to a day without any photos, until another cyprotus appeared, settled a few metres from me and opened its wings. I immediately saw that this was a female, which really grabbed my attention as I’ve seen very few females and photographed even fewer, none of which was as fresh and colourful as this lovely specimen.

I inched closer and managed to get 3 shots, or more accurately the same shot 3 times, before a male found her and they flew off together. I think the photo below definitely made the whole day worthwhile.

Female Copper Pencilled Blue
(Cyprotides cyprotus)

24/09/2020 : Kurnell

I’ve been butterflying at the Kamay Botany Bay National Park in Kurnell twice before, and found it to be a great site for the Dull Heath-blue (Neolucia mathewi). After a gap of almost exactly 12 years I decided to revisit the site because I’ve seen mathewi in very few places so I felt I could use some more shots.

In 2008 I saw mathewi in colonies all over the place – along the roadsides, along fire trails and in the dune heaths; I also saw quite a number of its close relative the more widespread Fringed Heath-blue (Neolucia agricola). This year I walked around the place for about 6 hours – I saw no agricola at all and maybe 6 mathewi which were flying at a height of around 4 metres around some small trees (presumably a foodplant). This spot was no more than 150 metres from where I’d got off my bus in the morning. Every now and then one would descend briefly so I got to take about 4 photos though none of them were much good. This was about the best I managed; a rather poor shot of Australia’s dullest-looking butterfly was not a great return for a day’s effort (including the travel to and from Kurnell). Oh well, that’s butterflying for you…

Dull Heath-blue
(Neolucia mathewi)

29/09/2020 : Lithgow

This was my annual visit to pay homage to the wonderful – but endangered – Purple Copper (Paralucia spinifera), a species close to my heart.

In previous years I’d always seen good numbers of these butterflies at this site, but on arrival I saw that virtually the whole area had burned during last summer’s bushfires. Just about all of the Bursaria spinosa foodplant bushes had been cremated, though there was a lot of regrowth springing up everywhere. I saw very few Coppers flying – maybe between 6 and 10 – and the ones I did see were all tiny. This is not a big species at the best of times with a wingspan of maybe 20mm, but this year’s crop were significantly smaller than that. My guess is that the fire happened before the larvae were ready to pupate (which they do underground, in ants’ nests), so they didn’t have sufficient food to reach full size.

I don’t doubt that this colony will recover, barring further setbacks, but it is likely to be a few years before they can be seen in the sort of numbers I’ve observed in past years.

02/10/2020 : Mittagong

Mount Alexandra at Mittagong is the best site I know of for the wonderful Silver-studded Ochre (Trapezites iacchoides), and I’ve also seen a fair few of the closely-related Montane Ochre (Trapezites phigaliodes) plus the occasional Heath Ochre (Trapezites phigalia) and Orange Ochre (Trapezites eliena) too. Being a big fan of these skippers I was hoping to see all 4 species to help get the season going after a series of disappointments.

The first thing I noticed was that someone had tampered with the road that goes up to the carpark. In the 3 years since my last visit here the gradient had been made much steeper, though I suppose there’s a chance that I’d simply become more decrepit in that time.

Once again I saw very few butterflies, though iacchoides was a notable exception. After a slow start in the morning things improved and I must have seen at least a dozen of these gorgeous skippers. Although most of them had some wing damage they were still fresh enough to be very colourful, and they were happy to perch on low shrubs so I could take photos. I wish more butterflies would be as cooperative!

Silver-studded Ochre
(Trapezites iacchoides)

09/10/2020 : Shoal Bay

On previous occasions that I’ve been to Shoal Bay the target species has been the Copper Ant-blue (Acrodipsas cuprea), which settles at a very convenient height here and so is relatively easy to photograph, or would be if it wasn’t always so windy on that exposed hilltop. This time, however, I was after the local subspecies of Swordgrass Brown (Tisiphone abeona aurelia), which I had seen in October 2019 without paying much attention as I hadn’t realised it was a different subspecies.

There were several cuprea on the hilltop, though as always seems to be the case at this site they were all somewhat bashed-up; I’ve hardly ever seen a fresh, intact specimen here. I would have loved to have found a female, as the only female cuprea I’ve photographed was about 30 feet up a tree so the photos weren’t much good. I had no luck with that or with the Swordgrass Browns, so it wasn’t a very productive day. All I got were some shots of tatty male cuprea and a couple of very common skippers.

13/10/2020 : Bell

I thought I had a chance of seeing some nice skippers, as I had seen at this time the previous year, and maybe even a Small Ant-blue (Acrodipsas myrmecophila) as it can be found early in the season in some years.

It didn’t work out as I had hoped. I knew the area had been hit by a bushfire in December 2019, but it hadn’t been incinerated like some other areas and a lot of the trees had hardly burned at all. However it appears that a lot of the skipper foodplants had perished as I didn’t see a single Hesperid all day, and I didn’t see any hilltopping Lycaenids either. I only took a handful of photos and most of those were of beetles, though a rather nice Spotted Jezebel (Delias aganippe) did allow me to get a few shots.

Wood White a.k.a Spotted Jezebel
(Delias aganippe)

21/10/2020 : Avalon

I finally got to see a decent number of butterflies! To get to Avalon I had to get a train to the City and then 2 buses, but upon arrival the colony of painted Sedge-skippers (Hesperilla picta) that I’d been looking for was right next to the bus stop. There is a lot of Gahnia growing in the damp area close to Careel Creek, and it looked to have been flourishing since Sydney began receiving rainfall again towards the end of last summer. The picta were thriving too; I saw more of them on the wing than I’ve ever seen before.

The first one I photographed was perched right next to the footpath, very close to my bus stop and less than two metres from the peak-hour traffic on Barrenjoey Road. I sat down on the edge of the footpath, where there was a one metre drop into the swamp. I was able to get into a very stable position and this, together with the lack of wind and the butterfly’s willingness to sit still enabled me to take one of my favourite shots of recent times.

Painted Sedge-skipper
(Hesperilla picta)

I spent a while in that swamp, trying to keep an eye out for Red-bellied Black Snakes (as I’m very scared of snakes) in between looking for skippers.

At times they were too busy buzzing about the clumps of Gahnia, or chasing each other, but every now and then one of them settled and provided a photo opportunity.

Female Painted Sedge-skipper
(Hesperilla picta)

Painted Sedge-skippers mating
(Hesperilla picta)

After filling my boots in the swamp I decided to try a nearby hilltop to see if there was anything interesting to be found. For a couple of hours the answer was a resounding “No”, until a female Dingy Skipper (Timoconia peron) showed up. It’s unusual to go to a hilltop and not see the male, in fact there were at least 4 of them on this hill at the time, but I rarely see females anywhere. This one didn’t seem to be very interested in the males, on in having her photo taken, but I was able to get a couple of shots of her, so climbing up that hill was worth the effort.

Female Dingy Skipper
(Timoconia peron)

Male Dingy Skipper
(Timoconia peron)

23/10/2020 : Glenbrook, Lapstone and Nepean River

My first site for the day was the Cox Street Reserve at Glenbrook, a site which I keep going to even though I haven’t seen anything much there for the last couple of years. That trend continued, so I soon walked through Glenbrook village and onto Darks Common Reserve at Lapstone.

My quarry here was the White-margined Grass-dart (Ocybadistes hypomeloma), one of the few species which is supposed to live around Sydney that I’ve never found. This reserve has a lot of Kangaroo Grass (Themeda triandra), this little skipper’s foodplant, so I thought it’s worth having a look.

There weren’t many butterflies around, which was surprising given how many flowers there were, but I did see a few grass darts so I tried stalking them to see if they were my target species. One specimen really got me going by repeatedly perching on the seed heads of the grass, exactly as described by Michael Braby in his book. I took a load of photos of this butterfly, but I don’t see any sign of the white margins on the hind wings so I presume it’s just a worn Green Grass-dart (Ocybadistes walkeri) instead. I’ve included a couple of shots below; if I’m wrong and it really is hypomeloma please let me know!

This site had one big surprise for me; walking along a narrow track I came upon a Blue Tiger (Tirumala hamata), a butterfly I’ve seen a few times around Sydney, but not recently and I’d never been able to photograph it outside of Queensland. This one was very well behaved and allowed me to move round to a good angle to get some shots before it decided it was time to move on.

Blue Tiger
(Tirumala hamata)

From Lapstone I went down to the banks of the Nepean River, between Emu Plains and Penrith, hoping to see some Satin Azures (Ogyris amaryllis). I walked quite a long way – I was getting tired now – but it wasn’t until I’d given up that I saw one flying low down around a Casuarina tree, right next to the birdwatcher/photographer who I’d stopped to talk to. The butterfly didn’t settle, and after a minute or two flew up and away. I did see maybe 3 or 4 more amaryllis, but they were all circling around the tops of the trees, way too high for me to get any photos. I still need to get some really decent close-ups of this species. Maybe next time.

Photo Gallery Updates

4 thoughts on “Update : October 2020”

Colin Wilson
27/10/2020 at 7:14 am

Hi Martin,

Good to hear you are still getting out and about and taking excellent photos as usual. Just to let you know I didn’t seem to get a subscribers notification for this update whereas the last couple have came through no problem. I’d still really like to get them as I love your website and am still planning a visit to Australia when travel is allowed again – in fact Covid has made me even keener !! I’m expecting delivery of “A Naturalists Guide to the Butterflies of Australia” tomorrow and am looking forward to seeing your photos in it.
Colin Wilson cwilson0412@gmail.com

1. Martin
  27/10/2020 at 2:05 pm
  
  Thanks Colin. I’m afraid something came up when I was finishing the website update, so I didn’t get the chance to do the notification email – you should have received one now though.
  
  I hope you get to do some butterflying over here at some point, though be warned – in most places you can go a long way without seeing much. At the moment I’m finding that even sites that have been good in the past aren’t being very productive, probably as a result of a few dry years and last season’s bushfires. We’ve had some rain since the fires and the bush is regenerating nicely, but I suspect it’ll be a year or two before butterfly numbers bounce back. Of course I can only speak for the Sydney area, as thanks to Covid restrictions I haven’t been interstate for a while now.
  
john
05/11/2020 at 6:41 pm

Hi Martin,
I discovered your site trying to identify a pair of very quick, small, blue butterflies feeding on a grevillia here in Dumbleyung, WA.
They were the Ogyris otanes (Small Bronze Azure) from your pictures.
I looked at the BA app to report them, but it is not set up for public sightings.

1. Martin
  06/11/2020 at 9:42 am
  
  Hi John
  That’s an interesting observation because according to the books the nearest location for O. otanes would be in the Stirling Ranges, which must be about 150kms away. This sort of thing would not be unusual for WA; the state is so huge that surveying it all to map butterfly populations is just about impossible. However, I think the Satin Azure (Ogyris amaryllis) is a more likely candidate because it’s much more widespread and common, and it does look blue in flight whilst otanes mostly looks brown. Were you able to get any photos?