It seems about time to relieve the tension, release you all from those tenterhooks, and deliver an update on the whole butterfly situation.
When last the lepidoptera featured here, it was with some frustration that I had to report complete failure in fashioning a lure to bring the district’s butterflies flocking to the Corner Cottage estate. Now, in business, among those people who like to opine on commerce, work practices and buzzy stuff like innovation and entrepreneurship, we are told that it’s good to ‘fail fast’. I’m not so sure. As one intimately acquainted with failure in all its multifarious hues, I cling to the notion that success has to be better.
Anyway, I digress. It’s probably more useful to pontificate about the virtues of patience, because although the butterfly lure didn’t work, pure persistence and time worked wonders. In fact, all that soul-searching about the bottle of sugar syrup was a waste of time, because about a week later, those tantalising creatures started showing up of their own accord.
I’m not saying it was easy. Getting a good shot still requires skulking about with an absurd phallic lens, crouching like a tiger and hiding like a dragon, straining the eyes and focusing the mind. But they did come, and with them some interesting revelations.
But first, it seemed wise to hone my skills on what was available. If Cabbage Whites are boring, then the good snapper will find a way of making them look interesting: interesting behaviour, interesting light, interesting angle – that kind of thing. Some allege Einstein said that doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result is insanity, so doing things differently should provide different results, not so?
Then, out of nowhere, there was the orange V-shaped flash of a Painted Lady (vanessa kershawi) (although I didn’t ID it as such at the time). Would it? Could it . . .? It settled! It settled on a bright yellow plastic lawn sprinkler, which those knowledgeable folk who set the rules for good photography will tell you doesn’t make for a natural-looking pic.
Then they started arriving thick and fast. A few hot days and the garden was swirling with orange and brown specks, which a week earlier were like those teeth hens don’t have many of. Persistence meant there were opportunities to get close and capture in detail these new arrivals. And it became clear that although most were the aptly-named Common Brown (heteronympha merope merope), in amongst these were others which were a bit different.
More Painted Ladies came by – and what’s interesting is that you start to tell they’re not Common Browns (hereinafter known as CBs): they’re smaller and fly with more pace and purpose than the CBs. When they settle, you can see that the tips of their forewings are black with white spots, rather than sporting a natty roundel like an RAF fighter plane, per the common brown. They also seem to be aggressively territorial: those whirling gold specks aren’t flying about out of pure joy – they’re having a turf war.
After a week or so of this, it started to pall a bit. Every now and then there might be a glimpse of wings of a darker hue – black or deep purple, I thought. But just like the brown ones of a few weeks earlier, they were elusive. Until yesterday, that is, when this came to the show.
Now that’s hardly a rarity – I think it’s a Common Australian Crow (euploea core), but let’s be frank, they’re not good pics so it’s not easy to be sure. But what a pleasure to finally bag a new one! It kept the obsession under control for all of 24 hours.
And so, today, it was back to furtive lurking at the bottom of the garden, where the rapidly recovering Paterson’s Curse seems to attract the Lepidoptera late in the day. It was the usual thing: watch the flitting, jinking object until it settled; sneak closer, trying to look like a shrub; frame and focus and fire a few shots; a bit closer, then frame, focus, fire; maybe crouch down for a different angle, or circle a little to get the light falling a certain way.
All well and good – more brown butterfly photos. But later, having a look at the pics again, it dawned: there was a new, unknown beastie there! The interwebs tell me this one’s a Meadow Argus (junonia villida)! Lovely, no? I’ll add this one to the blog’s Birds, Beasts and Bugs page shortly.
So there you have it – the fascinating twists and turns of stalking summer faunae in a small garden in a little rural town in a huge country. And a glimpse into the tortured mind of the tragic obsessive living there. It’s my burden but I’m good with it – come along for the ride!