High Living #3: animals above the treeline

This is the third and final of a series on life above the treeline, mostly high up mountains but also closer to the poles, in both cases where there is no longer enough solar energy around the year to support the massive energy needs of trees. It began here and you may wish to start there for context, but if you'd prefer just to read this photo essay on its own that would work too.

Hoverfly Melangyna sp. on Billy Button Craspedia sp.

I noticed when going through photos of high country flowers that quite a few had insect pollinators in them. This is not surprising as the short growing and especially flowering season means that pollination and seed dispersal must occur in a compressed time frame, so there will be heavy competition. In the Australian alps a range of insect pollinators can be found on the flowers. I assume that most if not all of these insects have either a one year life cycle or move downslope at the end of summer. Here are a few more examples; it seems a nice segue from the plants post to this one on animals.

Wasps sharing a Billy Button flower head. I am told that wasp taxonimists are suspecting
that wasp species may prove to be even more numerous than beetles. I am
unable to say how many species are represented in this photo, but I'm 
pretty there is more than one.

Certainly this wasp, on a Purple Eyebright Euphrasia collina, is a different species again.

Fly on Alpine Sunray Leucochrysum alpinum, a very common alpine daisy.

Spotted Alpine Xenica Oreixenica orichora on Alpine Mint Bush Prostanthera cuneata.

Australian Painted Ladies Vanessa kershawi on Alpine Sunrays.

 Of course not all alpine insects by any means are pollinators. Some are preying on the pollinators.

Alpine Darner Austroaeaschna flavomaculata high in Kosciuszko NP.

And some are busy munching on the foliage, especially the abundant new growth.

Spotted Mountain Grasshopper Monistria concinna on Alpine Mint Bush which is its preferred
food plant and which is probably the source of the unpalatable protective toxins in its body.
It is entirely flightless so needs this protection. This hopper is remarkably well adapted to 
life above the tree line, and can survive winter in the snow, thanks to having sorbitol, 
an 'antifreeze' chemical, in its body which lowers the freezing point of its body fluids.

Mountain Katydid Acripeza reticulata. This the female, which is flightless. She mostly
relies on camouflage for protection but if pressed (eg by inconsiderate photographers)
she opens her wing covers (which don't now actually cover any wings) to flash
her brilliant blue and red abdomen. This warns predators that she tastes very unpleasant.
The male has the same defence mechanism but he is long and slender like a conventional 
grasshopper and has fully developed wings. They are quite common high in the south-eastern
mountains, but despite the name are also found at lower elevations and deep
inland in semi-arid woodlands, though I confess I've only seen them high up.

Given the very small area of the Australian alpine country (less than 0.1% of the land mass), it is quite unsurprising that there are no specialist alpine bird species here though some birds that are common lower down go up there in summer for the food on offer. 

Little Ravens Corvus mellori foraging in the mist among boulder stacks on Mount Kosciuszko 
for Bogong Moths which aestivate there (the summer equivalent of hibernate) in the 
cool rock crevices, in their thousands.

Australasian Pipit Anthus australis, taking advantage of the temporary insect
bonanza, again high on Mount Kosciuszko.

In major mountain ranges however, and in lower altitude treeless regions closer to the poles, there are many bird species which specialise, either solely or primarily, in these environments. 'Andean' appears repeatedly in the names that follow. 

Andean Condors Vultur gryphus at the carcase of a Guanaco killed by a Puma the previous
night in Torres del Paine NP in Chilean Patagonia. This magnificent New World vulture
was once common down the full length of the Andes, but due to human interference and
deliberate extermination it is now rare in the north of its range, and only common 
in Patagonia, especially in this park.

4000km to the north, Andean Condors roost overnight on cliff faces low down in 
Colca Canyon in southern Peru, a gorge that is twice as deep as the US's Grand Canyon.
In the morning they rise on air thermals to forage for carcasses over the mountainous 
surrounds. This is a huge bird, which can have a wing span of over three metres
and weigh up to 15kg, which is mechanically the upper weight limit of a flying bird.
While in places they be sometimes seen at sea level, they breed at up to 5000 metres
above sea level (masl from here on) on isolated rocky ledges. This is the only
healthy condor population left in Peru.

Quite a few of the true alpine birds are waterbirds, for whom trees are generally not immediately relevant.

Andean Avocets Recurvirostra andina, here at Laguna Chaxa in the Atacama Desert in northern Chile,
are restricted to the central Andes from southern Peru to northern Chile, via Bolivia and 
northern Argentina. They breed at above 3500masl. 
These high altitude alkaline and hypersaline lakes are counter-intuitively rich in small animals

Andean Flamingo Phoenicoparrus andinus, also at Laguna Chaxa. They have an Andean
range which has the same core as that of the Andean Avocet, but is considerably smaller.
This, the least abundant of the flamingos, breeds at 3000-4000masl, but afterwards
some move to lower altitudes, though many don't.

The Salinas y Aguada Blanca National Reserve is in the Andes of far southern Peru. It covers a vast area of 370,000ha of puna meadows and ponds, 3500masl at its lowest point and rising to over 6000masl. Probably unsurprisingly in all this huge landscape there is only one tree species - a Polylepis, the highest altitude tree species in the world. The next three photos were all taken there.

Andean Geese Chloephaga melanoptera. This handsome bird lives its life at over 3000masl, along the 
Andes from central Peru to central Chile. The South American 'geese' are actually most closely
related to the shelducks.

Andean Lapwing Andean Lapwing, which lives and breeds in the puna and páramo of
the Andes from southern Colombia to northern Argentina, from 2700 to 5000masl.

Giant Coot Fulica gigantea on its huge weed nest, which can be three metres long and stand 
50cm out of the metre deep water, resting on the lake bed, though to 
start with it floats. It will be defended and expanded for years. The bird is indeed a giant among 
coots, being 60cm long and weighing up to 2.5kg. (Compare this to the familiar Eurasian
Coot, found widely from Britain to Australia, which is about 37cm long and weighs up 
to 900g.) The Giant Coot is a bird of the high central Andes puna above 3600masl,
ranging up to 6500masl.

Andean Teals Anas andium in El Cajas NP, southern Ecuador, at roughly 4000masl.
This species is restricted to the northern high Andes of Ecuador, Colombia and Venezuela.
In the south it is only found between 3500masl and the snowline, while further north
it may venture down to 'only' 3200masl.

While in El Cajas - truly a most remarkable and rewarding reserve, no matter what your natural history interests are, from plants to birds to extraordinary scenery - here are a couple of small terrestrial birds which have made the high bleak meadows their home. Both these were at about 4000masl.

Stout-billed Cinclodes Cinclodes excelsior. There are 15 species of ground-dwelling cinclodes,
members of the ovenbird family, one of the two ancient South American passerine groups
which dominate the continent (and which are a challenge for birders new to
South America!). This one lives only high in the northern Andes, from 3200 to 5200masl.

Many-striped Canastero Asthenes flammulata, another (and quite striking) ovenbird
with a similar range in the northern Andes, from 3000 to 4500masl.

Cinereous Ground Tyrant Muscisaxicola cinereus in similar habitat, but 2000km south
in the splendid Lauca NP in Northern Chile and also at about 4000masl. 
The tyrant flycatchers form the other ancient South American passerine assemblage. 
Many are forest flycatchers but this one spends most of its time foraging on the 
ground in the high central-southern Andes.

And, returning to both the pollination theme with which we began this post and to El Cajas NP, here are a couple of high altitude hummingbirds pollinating flowers in the thin air of El Cajas. 

Ecuadorean Hillstar Oreotrochilus chimborazo feeding on the national flower of Ecuador, the
'Flower of the Andes' Chuquiraga jussieui, a daisy. Both bird and flower live at 3000 to 5000masl
in the Ecuadorian Andes, though the plant also extends south into Peru.

Blue-mantled Thornbill Chalcostigma stanleyi on another daisy, though I can't put a
name to this one. (I can't readily think of an Australian daisy which is bird-pollinated,
but I imagine that at these altitudes insects could not be relied on.)
I love the iridescence of this beauty!

And finally, a ground-dwelling alpine woodpecker.

Andean Flicker Colaptes rupicola near Chivay (and Colca Canyon) in southern Peru at 3600masl.
It is entirely a bird of the high treeless Puna. Weirdly, depending on the population,
the black moustache could indicate a male, in which case the female will have no
moustache, or it could mean a female, in which case the male will have a red one!

High altitude - ie above the treeline - specialists are less numerous among mammals and reptiles, though they're not rare either.

In Australia the Mountain Pygmy-Possum Burramys parvus lives and breeds in shrubby healthland among the boulder piles at the highest parts of the Australian Alps, and doesn't extend lower than the Snow Gums of the high subalps. Moreover it occurs in just three sites in the Alps, with one small range in Kosciuzsko NP in NSW and two in the Victorian Alps. The total range of the species is about 600ha and the adult population apparently only about 2200 animals. Males mostly live lower down but go up to the females when it's time to mate. In winter they go into extended true hibernation under the snow among the boulders, where the temperature rarely falls below 0 degrees centigrade. They are the only Australian mammal to truly hibernate. In summer they feast on the masses of Bogong Moths which aestivate in boulder crevices, along with other invertebrates and hard seeds including that of the sprawling conifer Podocarpus lawrencei. In Australia it is the only mammal restricted to the alpine (and adjacent high subalpine) zones. There are a few South American marsupials (the shrew-opossums Family Caenolestidae) which also live above the treeline, but no others in Australia.

Mountain Pygmy-Possum, photo courtesy Melbourne Museum.
(I try to use only my own photos, but don't have any of this rare and shy little
marsupial. However it was too important a subject for this post to ignore.) 

Other Australian mammals of course move up the mountains in summer but only this pygmy-possum is there all year round. 

Bennett's Wallaby Macropus rufogriseus dwarfed among the heaths and granites of 
Ben Lomond in north-eastern Tasmania. This wallaby is known as Red-necked 
Wallaby on the mainland of Australia.

And here it is in close-up!

For the rest, regarding mountain mammals, it's back to South America. First a couple of camelids, with a group shot and a portrait for each. 

Guanacos Lama guanicoe (above and below) in Torres del Paine NP in Chilean Patagonia. 
While these are only at about 1500masl, at this latitude (50 degrees south), the tree line
is at about 500masl, so they live and thrive in a treeless and perpetually
windy environment. This park is one of their strongholds. Further north in the 
Andes they can be found at over 4000masl, but in other places (especially
Tierra del Fuego) they live at sea level.

Guanacos at higher altitudes have greater red blood cell counts and larger
hearts than expected for a mammal of their size.

Vicuñas Lama vicugna are smaller, higher altitude relatives of the Guanaco. They are
found further north in the Andes. Here is a small herd in the grandly bleak landscapes of 
Salinas y Aguada Blanca National Reserve in southern Peru. The lowest point of the park 
at 3500masl is close to the lowest to which Vicuñas descend. 
They can also thrive at nearly 5000masl.

Vicuña near Chivay in southern Peru, at 3600masl. 

Andean Tapeti Sylvilagus andinus, a cottontail rabbit from the high altitude páramo
grasslands of the northern half of the Andes; this one was in El Cajas NP, Ecuador,
 at close to 4000masl.

Male Southern Huemul Hippocamelus bisulcus, Torres del Paine NP. This is a seriously
endangered species from the far southern Patagonian highlands.

Southern Viscacha Lagidium viscacia in Lauca NP, which at its lowest point is 3200masl
and rises to well over 6000masl, in the arid Andes of far northern Chile. This is one of 
the ancient South American rodents, whose ancestors apparently rafted here from
Africa perhaps 45 million years ago.

And finally, and perhaps surprisingly, some reptiles and a frog. In the Australian Alps there are two species of porcelain-shiny black and gold alpine frogs called corroborree frogs, both Critically Endangered. The Northern Corroboree Frog Pseudophryne pengilleyi lives in the Brindabella Ranges in the ACT and adjacent NSW and in nearby northern Kosciuszko NP. Chitrid fungus, fires in the highland sphagnum bogs which they rely on, trampling of the habitat by feral horses and pigs and warming temperatures are driving both species to extinction though major captive breeding programs are providing some hope.

 

Southern Corroboree Frog in captivity in the ACT, part of a breeding program. They are less
than 3cm long, and do not hop. They spend winter under logs and rocks in woodland around
the bogs and in spring the males make nest burrows in the moss and call to the females
with a sound like a finger on a wet balloon. She lays no more than 25 large eggs. The tadpoles
stay within the jelly for up to six months, until melting snow floods the nest, and they take three
years to mature to a frog. In that time they conserve all waste nitrogen (other frogs convert it
to ammonia but this would be fatal in a burrow) and convert it to body tissue.
I remember when it was easy to find Corroboree Frogs, but now it would be nearly impossible - 
as well as being irresponsible to try.

Montane reptiles rely on basking on rocks and logs warmed by the sun; accordingly all such reptiles are diurnal. They are also adapted to be able to operate at much lower temperatures than most other reptiles. Most give birth to live young, which benefit before birth from their mothers' basking. Many mate in autumn, store the sperm over winter and are thus able to fertilise their eggs early and give their offspring more time to develop over summer to better survive the next winter. 

 

There are a couple of above-the-treeline snakes in the south-eastern Australian high country. 

The Highland Copperhead Austrelaps ramsayi can be found at up to 2000masl, well above 
the treeline, but also below it. This is much the larger of the two snow country
Australian snake species, growing to 1.7 metres long.

White-lipped Snake Drysdalia coronoides, southern Namadgi NP, ACT. It can be
active at up to 2100masl, almost to the top of Mt Kosciuszko, Australia's highest point.
It is generally only about 30cm long and lives mostly on small skinks.

Southern Water Skinks Eulamprus tympanum, basking on a wooden barrier by a carpark
on Mount Ginini, Namadgi NP. This is an abundant skink in the high country, found 
well above the treeline, especially in bogs and along stream lines.

And while I have no doubt that if Australian mountains were higher (as of course they were before erosion ground them away) there would be reptiles up there too, I have to go back to the Neotropics to introduce a couple of seriously high altitude reptiles.

Green Spiny Lizard Sceloporus malachiticus at 3400masl in the mountains of central
Costa Rica. These beautifully coloured lizards, found only in Central America,
spend a lot of time raising their temperatures by basking in the sun.
This one was doing so on a very cold day by my standards!

Fabian's Lizard Leialomus fabianus, Laguna Chaxa. It is restricted to the vast salt flat
that includes Laguna Chaxa, an incredibly harsh environment, and can be found
at up to 3000masl.

Which is probably a good time to draw a curtain (of mountain clouds) over this topic, while hoping that you've enjoyed reading it as much as I have enjoyed researching and writing it. My thanks for your support and I'll be back next time with something completely different!

NEXT POSTING THURSDAY 3 SEPTEMBER

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Life at Home; a busy little garden

The year is winding down and so am I, so for the last 'normal' post of the year I'm doing something low-key and a bit indulgent. (My actual last post of the year is always the New Years Eve 'Farewell to the Year'.) We live in a nice little duplex in the south-western Canberra suburb of Duffy. We moved in here in January 2011; Lou had lived here with her two children previously but had moved out for a while, so when we moved back in it was a blank slate, including the garden. She had done some nice native plantings, mostly out the back and especially after the horrific fires of 2003 which burned much of her back yard (and ironically brought us together, but that's another story). She gave me carte blanche with the garden, so I set out to convert it into an all-natives space (except for a camellia which had survived the fires, and some herbs and salad greens in pots). Here is the front as it looked when we moved in, courtesy of Google Maps street view. (Bear with me as I set the scene, as I would for a post about a national park for instance - the post really is eventually about the yard wildlife.)

The only plants in this 2010 photo that are still there are the big paperbark
(back right), the bottlebrushes on the side along the laneway, and an inconspicuous
grevillea (to the left of the light pole). Removing the huge snarky roses by the
driveway was a battle of Tolkienesque proportions!

It took time; here's the front yard taken from in front of the garage three years after we moved in. 

The 'dwarf' wattle in the foreground now towers over us and has to be cut back
regularly to allow us to access the front door!

And here's the same view today as the Google view above, though Google had the advantage of extra height.

The paperbarks and the bottlebrushes have grown enormously and,
with the teatree by the front corner of the driveway, give us a lot of privacy
and the wildlife a lot of shelter. The grevillea has been forced to grow out
over the footpath in search of sunlight. The 'dwarf' wattle shows as the bright
green foliage at the end of the driveway and the overhang in front of the garage door.

The laneway bottlebrushes provide a massive attraction for birds and insects
in October-November (though I see that in 2015 above they were flowering
in December - definitely a sign of the times since!).

You might think that our lounge room would be dark and a bit claustrophobic as a result, but it's not so (even though this photo was taken on a rather dreary afternoon).

We can sit inside and watch the birds coming to the bath and preening on
the convenient paperbark branch.

Out the back we got rid of the 'lawn' and the rotary clothesline and planted grassland herbs and had a bit of paving done to support the table and chairs. The plantings on the mound outside the fence again give us privacy and provide home and food for our wild neighbours.

Looking down on the back garden from the balcony; this was taken nearly six years ago
and it's filled in quite a bit since then, but it gives an idea.

And this is the view from the kitchen window; the pot plants on the table are because we've basically run out of garden space for more plantings!

OK, that's quite enough scene-setting, let's get to the animals.

When I left my previous abode, after 27 years, to move across town and start my new life here, I was very tempted to catch some of the skinks that lived in the back yard and transplant them, partly because I had reason to suppose that the house and yard would be bulldozed. In the end I didn't have time, and to my relief the house is still standing, but when I got here I discovered that we have our own skink population! They are Delicate Skinks Lampropholis delicata, a common local species. However they are very flighty (with reason, as I once saw one taken from the back yard by a Sacred Kingfisher, the only one I've seen here). With some hesitation here's a terrible photo, taken in a hurry in the late afternoon when I was moving concrete tiles in the garden.

The Delicate Skink is on the right, but its friend was even more of a surprise.
Fortunately I have better photos of it.

Southern Marbled Gecko Christinus marmoratus, by the front door
when we came home one night. They are not too uncommon in Canberra gardens,
especially where there are rocks, but it is unclear whether they have arrived
unaided or have been accidentally transported. We don't have a rocky reserve
anywhere nearby so I suspect the latter explanation in our case. They are established
here now and our neighbours also report them from time to time.

Over the years we've recorded 63 species of birds in, from and over our little yard, which has been very gratifying. The habitat values that we've provided here are well complemented by a lovely little park, planted with eucalypts and other native species, just outside our back gate. (Unfortunately a few years ago someone misguidedly planted a mess of exotics in the corner of the park just over the back fence from us, which clashes completely with the rest of the park. Fortunately it hasn't detracted from the overall habitat values of the park, but is aesthetically wince-making.)

The view across the park from our back gate; the eucalypt on the right gives us great
pleasure, as it appears above the big paperbarks along our back fence and attracts lots of
birds. Fortunately it and the paperbarks seem to be growing at about the same rate!
(The exotics are to the right of it.)

OK, back to the birds! There a couple of bottlebrushes (Callistemon spp.) facing the balcony, which flower intermittently from spring to autumn and regularly attract the birds, with the balcony an excellent vantage point.

Crimson Rosellas Platycercus elegans are abundant Canberra birds, but I remind
myself often that if they only lived in a remote corner of Australia people
would pay good money to go and see them. We are very fortunate.

Eastern Spinebills Acanthorhynchus tenuirostris are small long-billed honeyeaters
which are attracted especially to tubular flowers (a bottlebrush 'flower' is
composed of numerous such flowers). They also like the Eremophila by the
front window.

The Yellow-faced Honeyeater Caligavis chrysops is a seasonal migrant,
breeding in suburban hill reserves or the ranges; this one stopped off for a
day or so one spring.     

Nor is the bottlebrush's food value lost when the flowering finishes. Many smaller birds search through the yard's shrubbery for insect prey.

Silvereye Zosterops lateralis gleaning the underside of the leaves for small animals.

Another major attraction is the big banksia which is actually just outside our boundary but which overhangs the garden and the end of the balcony by our bedroom window. It attracts an array of birds, though the Red Wattlebirds Anthochaera carunculata, big aggressive honeyeaters, tend to monopolise it when it's in full flower.

Immature Red Wattlebird at a nearly spent banksia flower; its parents would
have known not to bother with it, but it will learn.

At night in spring and summer the Grey-headed Fruit Bats Pteropus poliocephalus come at night to squabble and feast on the banksia nectar from their regular summer camp by Lake Burley Griffin, some 10km away. However even after the flowering has finished the banksia still attracts visitors, including probably the most dramatic birds to visit the yard.

Yellow-tailed Black-Cockatoos Zanda funerea are big birds, some 60cm long,
which wander widely in search of food, banksia seeds being favoured.

The beak is hugely powerful; they nip off the cone and clutch it in a claw, then
crush it and extract the seeds, dropping the pulp. Our balcony is littered with
their food scraps on a good day!

Other less anticipated food sources are present too - House Sparrows have featured a couple of times! This fierce little Collared Sparrowhawk Tachyspiza cirrocephala took its lunch into the shelter of the back fence paperbarks to eat in peace.

Though I tried not to disturb it, I really wanted to record this event, and eventually
the sparrowhawk took its meal elsewhere for more privacy.

More surprising was the time I saw this Magpie just over the road killing a sparrow! I'm sure it's not a unique event, but I'd never seen it.

Others come by more in the hope being fed; we used to put out seed from time to time on the balcony rail, but when one particular Sulphur-crested Cockatoo started destroying our rail when no food was available, and even the neighbours' roof gable end, the final straw, we had to stop. It only takes one to spoil it for everybody!

Australian King-Parrots Alisterus scapularis (male above, female below)
stop drop by from time to time, just to check. (Photos taken through the glass.)

A Laughing Kookaburra Dacelo novaeguineae also turned up expectantly for a while - we'd never fed them but someone else obviously did - but gave up after a while. We can still hear them out in the park though.

Australia's (and probably the world's) largest kingfisher will always be welcome here,
but we don't pay them for the privilege.

Water is always an attraction and we keep bird baths topped up in front and back, all year round. We might think that it wouldn't be attractive in the depths of winter, but we'd be wrong!

You'll have to take my word for it that this is a female Superb Fairywren Malurus cyaneus
completely submerged in the bath in June; and yes, that's ice on the water surface!

Sprinklers can be attractive too.

Crested Pigeon Ocyphaps lophotes, having a nice shower under the sprinkler
(perched on a mesh covering we used to use to protect the salad vegie seedlings)
making sure that the armpits aren't neglected!

And of course birds were bathing long before we helped out!

This Sulphur-crested Cockatoo Cacatua galerita, leaf-bathing in the big eucalypt
in the park, as seen from our balcony. This means opening wings and feathers and
flapping to allow water from wet leaves to penetrate to the skin.

Some come to loaf.

Red Wattlebird sunning on the balcony rail, feathers fully fluffed up. It seems that
this behaviour, widespread in birds, allows sun access to the skin, to discourage
skin parasites, especially lice.

Quite a few larger birds take advantage of the high ridgeline of the steeply sloped roof, which presumably gives a good all-round view. Here are a couple of pigeons availing themselves of it.

Common Bronzewing Phaps chalcoptera.

Crested Pigeon; they're often up there. I really think this is one of the
world's most attractive pigeons.

Others just pop by to check, I suspect.

Immature Grey Butcherbird Cracticus torquatus. We often hear their strong melodious
calls from the park or even over near the shops, but this is the only one I recall seeing
actually in the yard.

Finally, with regard to birds, the cuckoo known as the Pacific Koel has become something of a celebrity, both famous and infamous, in Canberra over the past decade or so. There was a time when they were a very rare visitor here indeed. They migrate from the tropics each year to breed, and in past times didn't come much further south than Sydney. Since then they have become a very common summer visitor, laying eggs in the nests of hapless local Red Wattlebirds, who'd never encountered the threat before. Additionally we've discovered that Canberrans are divided into camps over this - those like us who welcome the wild, almost manic, ringing calls as a sure sign of spring, and, well, the rest of us...

Male Pacific Koel - a very handsome bird - on the line across the road.

Female Koel, striking too in a different way, in the excellent eucalypt out the back.

And some seriously weird koel behaviour that I've not seen before or since. Here's my account
of it at the time. "There were two males sitting in the big paperbark out the front, unusually
oblivious to us. Mostly silent, other than an occasional single call, and one brief 'wirra',
facing each other only 60cm apart, one slightly higher. Alternately they flicked their wings
at each other but no other movement. Of course I don't know how long they'd been doing it
when we got home, but they seemed to accept after about 15 minutes that they weren't
achieving much and just sat and stared at each other. An hour and a half later they're
still doing so; fascinating beasts which constantly surprise me."
And it's great that nature can even surprise us in our own garden!

And some smaller animals to finish with. The post is already longer than I'd envisaged (not for the first time!), so I'll just offer you some labelled photos; it's that time of year.

BEETLES

Golden Stag Beetle female Lamprima aurata; sadly yes, an ex-beetle, but we
were honoured that she opted to expired on our balcony rail

Long-nosed Lycid Porrostoma rhipidum on the Kunzea ambigua by our driveway
(as were the subjects of the next two photos). This beetle is highly toxic, and
various other beetles, plus other insects, mimic its colouring to gain protection.

Nectar Scarabs Phyllotocus rufipennis enjoying a romantic lunch.
They are among the mimics of the Long-nosed Lycid.

Longicorn beetle Syllitus rectus.

FLIES

Bristle Fly Family Tachinidae.

Bee Fly Comptosia apicalis on a paper daisy.

Hoverfly Melangyna sp., Family Sryphidae on teatree Leptospermum multicaule.

 DRAGONFLIES

 

Wandering Ringtail female Austrolestes leda. It's not so much that we don't see
damselflies and dragonflies in the yard, but they rarely stop to be photographed!

 BUTTERFLIES AND MOTHS

Australian Painted Lady Vanessa kershawi, also on the kunzea.

The Southern Old Lady Moth (I didn't name it) Dasypodia selenophora,
tends to lurk in dark corners but in the light it's really quite striking.

Magpie Moth Nyctemera amicus.

Greenish Grass-dart Ocybadistes walkeri also on a paper daisy.

WASPS AND ALLIES

Paper Wasps Family Vespidae, with their beautiful cellular nest on our balcony.
We've coexisted with them peacefully for years.

Bottlebrush Sawfly larva Pterygophorus cinctus - yes, feeding on our bottlebrush!

And here is one of its parents or aunts or uncles.... Perhaps. But it is the adult of the
Bottlebrush Sawfly larvae above - thanks Harvey! (I didn't recongnise it, I'm
hopeless at distinguishing sawflies from the related wasps, and I'm sure
I've seen more than I've realised.)

And here and below are a couple of species of unidentified (by me at
least) wasps, of which there are vast numbers of species, many
as yet unnamed.

SPIDERS

Golden Orb Spider Nephila sp., wrapping up some lunch just off our balcony.

Huntsman spider Family Sparassidae - this one was actually indoors rather than
in the garden.

And I'm not sure about this one at all, including what it was doing in the open on the
balcony rail.

And that, I'm sure, will surely be enough! But isn't it amazing how much wildlife we live with once we really start to look? We are very privileged indeed. Join me again once more this year for the traditional New Years Eve wrap-up of the year.

NEXT POSTING TUESDAY 31 DECEMBER

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