Wednesday 21 August 2013

Painted Ladies

We were in Albury last weekend and when you're in Albury you drive up Monument Hill to view the view. And the monument itself is worth looking at as well. It was built in the 1920s to commemorate the WW1 soldiers and has an art deco style.

Dean St, Albury (and beyond), viewed from Monument Hill.
The memorial on Monument Hill
But what really caught my eye was butterflies. I was amazed to see about six or eight Australian Painted Ladies Vanessa kershaw, all males, flying rapidly and low over the vegetation and basking in the sun. There were probably many more because the memorial is in a bushland reserve and we only saw a very small section of it. I presume the butterflies were hilltopping, establishing territories, but I must admit I hadn't expected to see any in mid-August. My first butterflies for the season.

Australian Painted Lady (actually a male), Monument Hill, Albury

3 comments:

Gouldiae said...

Way too early for Painted Ladies in Gippsland I reckon. I certainly haven't ticked them yet this season. Latitudinal thing I guess?
Regards,
Gouldiae

chrissie1057 said...

HI JUst wanted to say i love your blog. I live on the ocean road so lots of it is familiar to me.

Boobook said...

Hi Chrissie
Thanks for you lovely comment. I've been looking at your excellent webpage bird photos with interest as well - one I noticed was the yellow-tailed black cockies at the trough.