Big butterfly bonanza

The Safari was lucky enough to get out and about this arvo and with the hot sunshine we headed straight for the ButterflyZone of Patch 1.

We had to watch where we put our feet cos there were a few medium sized Frogs hopping about in the long grass.

A fluttery pale fly-past had us searching the undergrowth in the general direction it appeared to land in and we soon found this Silver Y moth.

Lots of Small and Large Skippers were flitting over the grass tops. This is a Small Skipper.

One of the skippers looked a little too big and not quite the right colour. It settled briefly but enough for us to be able to confirm it as a Small Copper...end of the first week of July and at last we get our first record of this fairly common and widespread species.

Like the skippers Meadow Browns were very numerous. This is another one with a twin eyespot, wonder what the percentage of these is in the local population.

A passing cloud allowed us to get some open wing shots but for most of the time they were aligning themselves wings folded with the sun to reduce their heat absorbing surface to a minimum.

On the way out we spotted a Comma basking deep in the undergrowth and by careful stealth and a lot of luck we got very close to him.

The star of the show, however, was this crackin little White Letter Hairstreak on the Thistles where CR had seen it the other day but been unable to match his pics of last summer.

We on the other hand were fortunate enough to fill our boots...these are a small portion of those we took

Boots filled we called it a day but then had a call from CR and ended up going back out but sadly we didn't get a repeat performance.

A very very good afternoon.

Where to next? A day off tomorrow so there is a good chance of a safari somewhere.

In the meantime let us know if your outback produced the goods today.