Website update : 16th April 2023

The butterfly season is winding down in the Sydney area as we head into the second half of Autumn.   It hasn’t been a very productive season for me, though I did have some noticeable success with a couple of Skipper species with which I’d had very little luck in the past.

On 19th February a trip to Mount Keira near Wollongong to look for the Dark Shield-skipper (Timoconia tymbophora) started off with a few sightings of at least two specimens, but no photos. They flew around a shrub that was just on the other side of the fence at the edge of the escarpment without ever settling even for a second. The weather then closed in, with clouds hugging the escarpment, so it looked as if that was the end of the day’s tymbophora hunt, but the day turned around only a couple of kilometres away where the road to/from the Lookout joined the Mount Keira Road.  The weather here was markedly better, with some decent sunny intervals, and within a few minutes a pristine male tymbophora settled on a low perch at the roadside and posed nicely for photos.

Over the next hour or two I photographed several different specimens, including one female, a very pleasing result after the earlier frustrations.  I had made a number of previous trips to Stanwell Park to look for tymbophora, and although that is a noted site for this species I’d only ever managed to one photo of a female there, so I was very happy to finally get a decent series of shots.

On 5th March I went to Ourimbah to look for the White-brand Grass-skipper (Toxidia rietmanni), another species I’d been struggling to find.  Shortly after arriving, early in the morning, I found myself in a little clearing close to Ourimbah Creek. Almost immediately I spotted a male rietmanni; he sat with his wings open and his white brand clearly visible, but I disturbed him trying to get close enough for a photo.  Within a few minutes there were two or three of them, and by mid-morning there were dozens of males to be found in a small area. Though they constantly disturbed each other I was able to take a number of photos of their uppersides. By 11am the temperature had reached 30C and the reitmanni now only sat with their wings closed, which made it possible for me to get shots of the undersides of their wings as well.

I then spent some time exploring elsewhere in the vicinity, without seeing all that much of interest.  I did see an occasional rietmanni, but never more than one in any one spot, and after an hour or two I returned to the clearing where I’d first seen them.  They were still around, but now I also found some females buzzing around at ground level amongst the grass.  I think I’ll try to return to the site a little earlier in the season next year, as the rietmanni I saw all looked to be at least a few days old and I’d love to get shots of some really fresh specimens, but I was still really happy to have seen so many of them on the wing, especially as I’d only ever seen three rietmanni in the previous 19 years!