Rowes Bay wetlands

I took my camera down to the wetland boardwalk behind Rowes Bay Sustainability Centre and the (new) Landcare Nursery a week ago. It was a very hot day but I found a good shady spot with views to nearby swamp and perches, and waited for the birds to forget I was there.

They did, and I got nice photos of half a dozen species. The best of them have already been shared online so I will just post links to them as they appear on iNaturalist: Sacred Kingfisher, Masked Lapwing, Koel (female), Hornbill Friarbird, and Pheasant Coucal.

But I’m a bug-hunter too, so here are some of the smaller creatures I saw from the boardwalk.

Leaf beetle
Leaf beetle

Continue reading “Rowes Bay wetlands”

Dragonflies beside Rollingstone Creek

Rollingstone Creek
Rollingstone Creek, still in dry-season mode

Three months ago I visited Rollingstone Creek with a Wildlife Queensland group, and I liked the place so  much that I went back there a few days ago. The creek and its park weren’t much changed (Rollingstone, 50 km to our North, has had more rain than Townsville so it hasn’t continued to dry out as we have) but the star attractions this time were the insects, not the birds.

Dragonfly showcase

Of the insects, one dragonfly was outstanding.

Rhyothemis resplendens
Jewel Flutterer

This gorgeously coloured dragonfly was new to me Continue reading “Dragonflies beside Rollingstone Creek”

Town Common in June

town common view
Looking over the Town Common from high on the Many Peaks track

Two weeks ago I took advantage of a free day to visit the Town Common for the first time since the very hot (but not very wet) Wet season and I’m now taking advantage of an unseasonably wet day to post some of the photos I took there.

I walked in from the Pallarenda car-park, around the wetland loop and then up the Many Peaks track for the wonderful views from the top. I continued half an hour further along the track, down from the hill-crest and through a large vine thicket, before returning the way I came. I heard lots of birds at the very beginning of the walk but they didn’t pose for me so the insects are the stars of my gallery. Continue reading “Town Common in June”

Butterflies and other insects on the Town Common

Here are some of the insects I saw on the Town Common yesterday – far more numerous than the birds I talked about in my previous post, although I have to say that wasn’t entirely a Good Thing (more on that later).

Butterflies

  • Marsh Tiger, Danaus affinis
  • Lesser Wanderer aka Plain Tiger, Danaus chrysippus
  • Common Crow, Euploea core
  • Blue Tiger, Tirumala hamata
  • Common Eggfly, Hypolimnas bolina
  • Blue Argus, Junonia orithya
  • Bush Brown, Mycalesis sp.
  • Grass Yellow, Eurema sp.
  • Clearwing Swallowtail, Cressida cressida
  • Black-spotted Flash, Hypolycaena phorbas

Of these, the first two are always abundant on the Common and the next three are nearly as common. All five are about the same size. The next three are all smaller. They are also common but are trickier to identify because close relations in each genus look so much alike (which is why I have just said “Eurema sp. [species]” and so on). The last one is the odd one out, belonging to a different family (Lycaenidae) and being much rarer.

Marsh Tiger butterfly
Marsh Tiger
Plain Tiger butterfly
Lesser Wanderer or Plain Tiger
Common Crow
Common Crow

One of my reasons for posting these three photos as a set is that they happen to show all three species feeding on the same kind of flower, the Tridax Daisy.

Black-spotted Flash
Black-spotted Flash, female

Lycaenidae (Blues) are usually quite small but this one is bigger than most, about the same size as the Grass Yellow.

I did also see many other small butterflies and moths but they were impossible to keep track of.

Dragonflies

Golden dragonfly
Golden dragonfly, unidentified
Red dragonfly
Common Glider, Tramea loewii

Standing water always means dragonflies and they were as numerous as the butterflies. Once again, I couldn’t begin to identify all of them and I’m just posting a couple who posed nicely for me.

And the rest

Add together the numbers of butterflies and dragonflies and you might be close to the total number of grasshoppers; add together the grasshoppers, butterflies and dragonflies and you might be close to the total number of mosquitoes – or that’s what it felt like! The Common is not a place to visit without repellent in the Wet season.

Most of the mozzies were the little standard-model grey-black types but one, seen below attempting to drill through my pants leg, was special enough for a photo.

Brown mosquito
Brown mosquito

She (males don’t suck blood) was about twice the average size – perhaps not as big as the magnificent Metallic Mosquito, but close.

My oddest discovery of the trip was this:

Pandanus leaf
Pandanus leaf

Pandanus leaves are spiked along the edges but this one – and others on the same plant – seemed to have pairs of supernumerary spines coming from the lower face of the leaf. A closer look revealed that each pair of ‘spines’ was a pair of wings attached to plant hoppers (Derbidae, Hemiptera), each of which was attached to the leaf via its proboscis (properly called a ‘stylet‘) and earnestly sucking sap from a vein.

sap-suckers on leaf
Derbid plant-hoppers feeding on pandanus