Common brown stuff

Remember last year, around this time, when this blog expressed frustration about the rarity of female Common Brown butterflies, and how difficult they were to photograph? Of course you do! Well, this year for some reason, we are faced with virtually the opposite situation. The gals are everywhere, but the male of the species is pretty thin on the ground.

Now I don’t pretend to be a scientist, but that’s no bar to hazarding some wholly unsupported theories — or ‘guesses’ as they are more accurately known. These are of course works in progress and open to someone else actually proving or disproving them — or indeed, bringing them to any kind of resolution.

Theory 1: given that it’s been a wet, humid summer, thanks to La Niña, I would suggest that these abnormal weather conditions suit female butterflies better. Theory 2: given that last year followed a catastrophic drought, I would hazard that drought followed by a resumption of rain suits male butterflies better. Like the great mouse plague of 2020.

So there ya go.

Anyway, keeping things purely in the empirical world, as I said, those females have been everywhere this summer. It’s not uncommon to be tramping about on Commonwood or in Bicentennial Park and have three or four orbiting your head at the same time. This is both good and bad . . . good because they are more attractive than the males, with those yellow panels on their wings providing a scintillating flashing effect as they flutter about.

Bad is that they are still frustratingly difficult to photograph. This has not changed since last year, so despite their numbers, they remain unwilling to settle for any amount of time, and if they do, it’s on the ground where pretty shots aren’t really possible.

But every now and then you do get them in the right place at the right time and can fire off a few shots. This enables you to study those beautiful wings in a bit more detail. The other day I realised that this combination of browns and yellows appeals particularly because it echoes the ‘sunburst’ finish on certain very desirable guitars — particularly ‘three-tone’ sunburst.

(You know, a long, long time ago — like, really far back in time — some literary theorist specified that a proper simile must make comparison with things in nature. So it’s pretty bad literary form to compare a thing from nature with a manmade object. But we’re in that kind of world now — post truth and all that. Sorry classicists, but that’s the facts.)

It got to the point where I could snap this one with my phone as it posed on the postbox from Bunnings.

The odd dude still does abide, though. Yesterday, one made himself obnoxious to Archie, who was merely snuffling about in its territory. He didn’t like it.

But back to the matter at hand. Over the course of the last few weeks of summer, enough Common Brown females have settled for enough time with enough passable light shining on them to be photographed. I stand by their overall loveliness — but it doesn’t pay to examine their physiognomy too closely.