Butterfly: Ocybadistes walkeri sothis

The Yellow-banded Dart is a skipper butterfly, named for their darting nature. Last year, when I first noticed one, I thought it was a grasshopper whipping by.

Looks like baby darts to the left.

Other names: Greenish Grass-dart, Green Grass-dart, Southern Dart. The Ocybadistes walkeri sothis is the only sub-species found in Victoria. Also found in the Australian Capital Territory, New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, and Tasmania.

this one is a female, the male has a little more colour under the wings

about to open her wings

I was gobsmacked when I saw that this butterfly has FOUR wings!

on mint flowers

I’m dishing these up for Sally D’s Mobile Photography Challenge. The first Monday in the month is Nature. Nearly all my photos are that theme already. Taken with the Nokia Lumia 520 Windows phone, cropped and reduced.

I hope you are having a great weekend. Thanks for dropping by. 🙂

phoneography image

Butterflies & Moths

Caterpillar Feet

I’m posting this for Sally D’s Mobile Photography Challenge. The second Monday of the month is Macro … I just squeeze in. I’m using the Nokia Lumia 520 windows phone for these photos. Cropped and optimized, otherwise untouched. I hope my images are macro enough. I can’t get much closer with my phone camera.

clinging to the midrib

I’m making the most of these caterpillars while they’re here. I’m rather taken by their nasty-looking forelegs! No wonder they have such a good grip on the vine leaves.

Perhaps I should have titled this post Caterpillar Feet & the FINAL theme.

You might have noticed that I’ve messed with the theme – again. It was Twenty-Fourteen for a day or two, with the lovely big featured images, but it just wasn’t practical for tablet navigation.

upside down is no problem at all

topsy-turvy

Australian Grapevine Moth caterpillar

(thumbnail of the featured image)

Just click on any images you would like to see bigger.

My resident blackbird shot out of the grapevine this morning as I went out my side door. I wonder if it might gobble up the smaller caterpillars. As they strip the leaves, they do expose themselves. I’ll keep an eye out.

Thanks for looking. Have a good day. 🙂

Check out Sally’s interesting post and images for this week here (Macro & Abstraction of a Ginko Leaf)