It's school holidays, which is awesome for me because I'm a school teacher, but it also means that I have to look after my kids because they're also on holidays. So today the three of us went for a quick look around the Williamstown Botanical Gardens. My children like it there because we usually see ladybirds and butterflies, and there's also a playground nearby.
We only got to have a quick look around, but as luck would have it, we managed to find exactly what I hoped to find - ladybirds and butterflies!
The first thing I saw was a pair of Dingy Swallowtail (Papilio anactus) flying around. I waited for one to land, but it was very, very flighty and flew before I could get even 10 metres from it. This pattern repeated for a while, but eventually one landed and allowed a closer approach and I got a ripper photo!
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| #1 Dingy Swallowtail (Papilio anactus) |
Next we went to what we call the ladybird tree, where strangely enough we found about 10 Fungus-eating Ladybird (Illeis galbula).
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| #2 Fungus-eating Ladybird (Illeis galbula) |
After the ladybird tree, we moved on to look for butterflies when my eldest daughter started yelling excitedly. She had found a butterfly hotspot, with about ten butterflies from at least three species flying around. Amongst them was a large, aggressive Monarch (Danaus plexippus plexippus), a species that I have seen only a few times and never photographed. I waited, hopeful for it to land, but it seemed much more interested in chasing away other butterflies from its patch. I waited patiently for what seemed like an eternity but was probably more like 15 minutes until it landed, and I snapped off a few photos.
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| #3 Monarch (Danaus plexippus plexippus) |
Then the trip was cut short by the dreaded words, "Dad, I need to go to the toilet." We didn't quite make it in time...
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