Merry Christmas

Jezebels and painted ladies

In my suburban garden a butterfly or two occasionally wander through but here on the farm it's lovely to see them in numbers flying low over the grass.

The most common are the male Common Browns and the Cabbage Whites but I've seen a few Painted Ladies and several Spotted Jezebels on the Agonis in the garden (see below). The flowering Agonis is attracting a lot of native bees, flies and beetles.

And this Mantis Fly arrived inside with the washing off the line. I took it outside to have its portrait taken and then let it go.

Colourful cloud

Phew! Holidays at last. It's six weeks since I last blogged. The last few weeks have been busy but now we're down at our farm near Heywood for a couple of weeks. Lots of family will be coming and going and its going to be a busy but in a different way and there will still be lots of time to get out into the bush.

As we left Geelong this afternoon I saw this cloud over Highton. The rainbow colours only lasted a few minutes and then the colour was gone. It was very warm and sunny, no showers, and the photo was taken almost looking into the sun. I seem to remember reading in my cloud book that this phenomenon has a name but that book's at home and I only have limited internet access here. [Update: My friend Marilyn tells me it's an iridescent cloud http://www.atoptics.co.uk/droplets/irid1.htm ]