Southern Highlands, NSW
Greetings,
This has been the coldest December since 1960. It seems to be grey and wet most days so conditions have not been ideal for butterfly photography. Today, the clouds cleared at noon. I hopped into the car and drove up to the southern highlands to a place that I found last summer. This site is along a reservoir and has dense thickets of spike-rush (Lomandra sp.), sword-grass (Gahnia sp.), Tea Trees (Leptospermum sp.) and ferns. Further from the water a patches of Eucalyptus woodland.
Here are photos from the visit today.
Habitat:
Common Browns (Heteronympha merope) were abundant, especially along dirt tracks through the forest. I saw large numbers of these sexually dimorphic butterflies.
Females always attracted the attention of males. In the shots below, a male landed next to the female and then hopped towards her with open wings. At times the male would knock the female until she finally took flight with him in close pursuit. Sometimes, the females would lay flat in the grass while the male danced around them.
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