I returned to the Blue Mountains yesterday. I wanted to search for butterflies along this creek. According to the field guide, there are several species of montane butterflies that live in this habitat and I hoped to find a few. The day was hot and humid and activity pretty much died by midday when temps were in the mid-30s. There were only a few species of plants with flowers at this time of year. One of these was a Tea Tree (Leptospermum sp.) but here in the mountains, it seemed only attractive to hymenoptera.

There is a trail along this creek and this is where I spent most of the time. Plants like Saw-sedge (Gahnia sp.), Spike-Rush (Lomandra sp.), Purple Flag (Patersonia sp.) and rice flowers (Pimelia sp.) were common. All of these are host species of several species of skippers.






Butterflies were out in good numbers from about 10am-12pm. After that, only a handful of species remained active.

One of the most common was this Ochre. There are several similar species in the area but after lots of net-searching and reading of the field guide, I believe these to be Southern Silver Ochres (Trapezites praxetes). This is a male that looks quite different to the females below. It also seemed larger. I always had the impression that males were smaller than females in the butterfly world but maybe this is not correct. The faces and proboscis of most butterflies were caked with pollen.



... females