Wildlife on Wheelers Peak.
This was a rare treat! I’ve only ever seen these in Butterflyhouses, books or web sites. It was delightful to see one attracted to the buddleia down under the eucalypts on our own property.
The iridescent blue patches on the wings are only visible from certain angles, and can be difficult to photograph. This is a male Common Eggfly. A rather drab name for a very striking and uncommon butterfly.
The beautiful Tailed Emperors are frequent summer visitors. They lay their eggs on our Kurrajongs and Illawarra Flame trees, growing into a spectacular and large caterpillar. Unfortunately every time we discovered one within reach this season we didn’t have cameras with us, and when we did have cameras the caterpillars were no-where to be seen. Woohoo … managed to find a late season caterpillar. Photos below.
This year the butterflies have been attracted to the flowering figs. At least two different Tailed Emperors were photographed, each with slight differences in their wing markings.
The Tailed Emperor butterfly is fairly large, much larger than the Common Brown butterflies they fed beside on the figs. They are usually fairly flighty, however the sweet nectar produced by the over-ripe figs seemed to have a pacifying effect on all the butterflies that fed there, and they were very easy to approach and photograph.
Putting my boots on after lunch I noticed what looked like a squashed spider on the floor. Figuring it must have been under my boots, I nudged it towards the door, whereupon it grew 7 legs and scurried like crazy across the floor. Being polished porcelain tiles the spider didn’t make much ground, so I nudged it a bit more with the toe of my boot till it was outside.
It was the craziest spider I’d seen in a long time. If anyone knows what this “walking smudge” actually is, let me know eh?
