Photo of the Week

This week’s Photo of the Week was taken yesterday.
(Sunday, November 6, 2016)

While one of my friends isn’t very happy about migrating butterflies ” . . . chomping away on my beautiful little Cycads that are trying to spout!”, I’ve delighted in trying to photograph them.

You’d think with so many flying around that that would be an easy task, but sadly that was not the case.  It took ages, but with a little patience, and a lot of clicking, I managed to capture a few images that are almost ‘passable’.

These are Belenois java, the caper white or common white butterfly and (according to an article on the Brisbane Times website), hundreds of millions of them are currently flitting around south east Queensland.  We are an hour and a half north of Brisbane and the property here is ‘alive’ with them.

These native butterflies migrate west of the Great Dividing Range each year to lay their eggs, but these numbers is a phenomenon that only occurs every six to 10 years.  Perhaps, as one butterfly expert suggests, it has a lot to do with good rainfall out west and both the temperature and humidity east of the divide being high at the moment, providing the butterflies with perfect flying conditions.

They’re expected to be around for another month or so.  Cover your cycads Kylie 🙂