The birch tree may have had to wait for its Christmas decorations, but it was worth it. For a brief time four Crimson Rosellas bedecked its slender branches, the thin leaf cover hiding none of their brilliance.
A momentary adornment, as soon they were on the ground, sampling the seed heads of various grasses, waddling and poking about amongst the yellow flowers of the False Dandelion weeds. If I squinted, I could pretend I had a buttercup meadow.
visitors
Where brushes meet
The native Brush Cherry (Szygium australe) in my garden is just opening its buds.
Somehow the word went straight out into the butterfly world, for within a day of this happening, a certain species suddenly appeared to claim those flowers.
I counted around 35 of these butterflies just on the sides I could see. They weren’t my usual Wanderer butterfly, so out came the butterfly book.
What they are (I think) is Klug’s Xenica (Geitoneura klugi klugi, a member of the Nymphalinae family, sub-family Satyrinae). If I’m right, it’s a quaint semantic coincidence, as the species of this sub-family is also known as the brush-footed butterfly.
Different meanings of ‘brush’ — but the brush-footed butterfly loves the Brush Cherry blossoms!