I was taking photos of bees in my red bottlebrush bush when I spotted this butterfly up high in the tree outside our kitchen windows.

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I discovered that it is called the Australian Painted Lady. It has an alternative name of Blue-Spotted Painted Lady because of its tiny blue spots on its hind wings. I didn’t get close enough to see those clearly. The male genitalia is different from other painted ladies, so ours is considered a separate species (Vanessa kershawi).

 

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In Spring, the adult butterflies migrate southward from Queensland and New South Wales, sometimes en masse.

 

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I will have to keep an eye open for caterpillars. They love daisies, including capeweed. I haven’t seen many of these butterflies about, though, so I do not like my chances.

 

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So, I wandered off to another part of the garden and I could hardly believe it landed right by me. Just a little too far away. Certainly does not look much with the wings closed. You can see the white ends of his antennae.

 

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All images taken yesterday using the Nikon D3000 SLR, on auto. Cropped, scaled, and sharpened in GIMP.

Thanks for looking.   🙂

Butterflies & Moths

Australian Painted Lady

Image

9 thoughts on “Australian Painted Lady”

  1. sue ouzounis says:

    Don’t see many butterflies mostly white moths. But then again I’m not out in the garden that much and we don’t have much of a garden to be out in. So love all your pictures of flowers and bugs.

    Liked by 1 person

    • We have the odd cabbage moth flying about and some smaller pale moths or butterflies. I thought this was one of the other orange ones I’ve photographed, but then I saw the lace-like edges. Glad you enjoy my photos, Sue. We don’t seem to have as many bugs about yet. Plenty of damned mozzies!

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