Watching: Deja Vu
Reading: The Guernsay Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
Listening to: cicadas
Making me smile: Butterflies dancing on air!
It’s nearly the end of the “Season of Butterflies”! Over the past couple of weeks these beautiful, delicate creatures have been everywhere and a walk across our grassy paddock produces a gorgeous, unchoreographed aerial ballet.
I’ve been particularly aware of this seasonal indicator since we visited Brambuk
up in Halls Gap in Western Victoria where the Season of Butterflies is called ballambar. It’s early summer and runs loosely from the middle of November until the end of January.The indigenous people of Gariwerd use nature to determine six seasons rather than having them set by calendar dates and to do this, they observe the behaviour of plants and animals as well as climate.
I don’t kn
ow if the name, ballambar, can be applied to the part of Victoria where I live but it’s definitely the season of butterflies here.We found a small wattle tree with an odd collection of rather unattractive pupae. By keeping a watch on them, I caught them as the butterflies were starting to emerge and took some photographs. I couldn't find the name of the butterfly but it's the lovely pale blue creature above with its striking tail markings.
So are there any seasonal indicators that you're particularly aware of? How did you learn about them? Is it something you noticed yourself, something you read about or something that's been passed on to you by someone else?
My favourite seasonal markers in NZ are the pohutakawa trees. They are huge, ancient trees that cling to the seashore and over Christmas, they are smothered in crimson flowers. I get a tingle every December when I see the first blooms coming out. They herald celebrations, family and summer holidays.
ReplyDeleteWhat a gorgeous post, Sharon! How lovely to be walking in fields thick with butterflies.
ReplyDeleteMy mother used to tell me that when the murraya bushes (mock orange) go into full bloom, it's an indicator of much rain ahead. And she was right!
Hi Sharon,
ReplyDeleteFascinating post. Thanks for the pics! Change of season? I suppose we know it's summer when the rotten channel-billed cuckoos arrive and start making a racket, and of course when the cicadas start. Where I used to live summer meant raspberry season (yum) and cherries for sale. Can you tell it's breakfast time? Right now we're seeing lots of baby birds who hopefully will make it past the predators.
By the way, I love the book you're reading.
Loved the post Sharon and the pictures one thing that I have always been told by my Mum was that when you see the ants moving "house" it means we are in for rain and lots of it.
ReplyDeleteAt the moment I just wish it would cool down a bit it is so hot here in Sydney
Have Fun
Helen
Sharon, what a lovely post. And what a pretty butterfly. We don't get that one up here. I currently have a big flowering buckinghamia in my garden and the butterflies are going nuts on the nectar. Wonderful! Helen, my mum believed that about ants too and I think she's right. We have lots of ants at the moment which will be no surprise. Actually here in south-east Queensland, we don't have really straongly delineated seasons but you can chart the year by what's in flower.
ReplyDeleteHi Sharon,
ReplyDeletearen't butterflies the most beautiful creatures?!
Just heard that all the birds in the rainforest are GONE - ALL of them! with that terrible cyclone approaching. Always amazes me how animals just know.
Around my house, whenever ants build up their nests, rain is coming and apparently (aboriginal lore?) however high those nests are is how much rain we'll get. Another indicator that works every time, is the spiders that come inside. (I live on ground level). In those floods, up to a week beforehand those garden spiders were constantly coming in.
Ooo, Zana, I LOVE the pohutakawas! They're known as the "New Zealand Christmas tree", too, aren't they? Anyway, that's a marvellous example of a seasonal marker!
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Sharon
Vanessa, isn't that murraya bush a great marker for the weather! I'll bet they've been blooming their hearts out this year!
ReplyDelete:)
Sharon
Hi Sharon,
ReplyDeleteI know this is totally nerdy... but your beautiful photos made me dig out my Butterfly book. I think your pale blue butterfly is Jalmenus evagoras evagoras, the common imperial blue. He is gorgeous and I love the detail at the end of his tail. Great photos!
Cath (the nerd!)
Hi Annie, the book is amazing, isn't it! I read a couple of blogs about it and just knew I had to get a copy - I'm sure yours was one of the blogs I read and the other was Michelle Douglas, from memory. It's a very moving story and the 'correspondence' format is just a bit different and it works very well.
ReplyDeleteYes, to the cicadas! I find them fascinating - they seem to have a secret signal so they all stop at the same time. One minute the noise is really defeaning and the next, total silence!
:)
Sharon
Thanks, Helen! Commiserations on the heat up there. We had nearly 40 degrees on Monday. UGH! But Sydney is so humid with it that I think the heat is harder to bear.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely with the ants - actually they'll have had a VERY busy year this year!
:)
Sharon
Anna, I've seen pictures of your fabulous buckinghamia!
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you like my butterfly pics - I've been stalking them to get these photos. They don't stay still for long! Just as well our neighbours don't live too close or they'd be thinking I was very strange! LOL
:)
Sharon
Mel, that cyclone is HUGE! Terrifying! The rainforest must be an eerie place with the birds having left - a real warning in that, isn't there?
ReplyDeleteI like your extra bit of ant lore about the height of the nest. LOL on the spiders coming inside - they don't like to get their feet wet, do they?
:)
Sharon
I love the photos, Sharon!
ReplyDeleteThis year I've been marking the seasons by the birds I feed just outside my window. In spring, the parents came to grab beakfuls of food to take back to their babies, and then before Christmas the first of the fledgling wax-eyes arrived to feed for themselves. In the last week or two, the baby sparrows have started arriving -- they obviously hatch a lot later than the wax-eyes!
YES! YES! That's it, Cath! You are clever - not nerdy at all!
ReplyDeleteI hopped over to Google to check it out and it absolutely confirms your identification. I saw the caterpillars with ants swarming all over them. At first I wondered if they were attacking them but then I could see that wasn't the case. So now I know the ants were there for the honeydew that the caterpillars produce!
Thank you for looking them up for me!
:)
Sharon
Emily, birds are a lovely way to mark the seasons. We've had gorgeous blue wrens bringing up their family in the diosma at the back door. Of course, it does mean that the kitchen window is now a mess with tiny beak scrapes from the male "seeing off" his reflection in case it's a rival for the affections of his mate! But well worth a bit of elbow grease for the fun of watching them!
ReplyDelete:)
Sharon
So glad you think I'm not a nerd, Sharon :-) And I got your butterfly right. Phew!
ReplyDeleteCath
Hi Sharon,
ReplyDeleteWhat a lovely post! How lovely to be walking in fields thick with butterflies.
I know when we have mango season then its cyclone/hurricane season here as well. So we have lot of mangoes in season this year and I hear cyclone is not far behind.
Seriously, Cath, I'm rapt! Thanks to you I've discovered the australian Museum's great website and a butterfly identification file!
ReplyDelete:)
http://australianmuseum.net.au/document/Butterfly-Shapes-Colours/
Hey, Nas - I LOVE mangoes but it's a bit grim that they seem to be a marker for the arrival of cyclone season! That's a case of the cloud which belongs to the tasty silver lining, isn't it!
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Sharon
Sharon, your butterflies are beautiful!
ReplyDeleteI'm afraid my seasonal indicator isn't anywhere near as romantic, but... When the possums start fighting, hissing and chasing each other across our (tin) roof in September, I know spring has sprung. :-)
Hi Sharon --
ReplyDeleteWhat beautiful pictures!
Up here in the tropics the arrival of the (very noisy) black cockatoos signals the arrival of the wet season.
LOL, Michelle! Those possums are dreadful when they cavort across the roof at all hours of the night! Hard to believe they're as small as they are for the racket they make! And then there's that awful rattling cough they make as well! Nope, not romantic! ;)
ReplyDeleteHi Anna,
ReplyDeleteAre your noisy visitors red-tailed black cockatoos?
We have the yellow-tailed ones visit us down here occasionally - they're rather fond of our hakea bush and give it a jolly good pruning each time. They make loud but fairly musical squeals compared to their raucous cousins, the sulphur-crested white cockatoos.
:)
Sharon
Not at all as naturally romantic as some of the other posts but you know harvest (which happens about 2-3 times a year depending on the weather) has arrived when all the native birds start appearing on the fences and roads in the area.
ReplyDeleteThe ones on the roads are eating the grain that fall off the trucks as they deliver the crops to the silos.
Unfortunately, harvest also means higher fatality rate as the birds are so heavy with grain they can't avoid traffic as quickly as they usually do. :-(
Love the butterfly photos, Sharon!
ReplyDeleteSince we moved out of the city, I've been noticing the wildflowers and their seasonal flowering times. My favourites flower in the winter, so I look forward to them all year. One is a deep purple, a bit like an orchid, and when it flowers I realise that more little bushes have grown since last winter but were hiding. :) The whole area looks green and purple for those weeks.
Sorry I'm late visiting, Sharon!
ReplyDeleteWhat an excellent post.
This year I have been excited to see so many butterflies--more than I can remember ever seeing. At my little farm in the Blue Mountains there have been hundreds of them.
A few weeks ago I looked over near my huge old pear tree to see a flurry of the orange and brown ones dancing on an air current in what seemed to be a figure of eight pattern. It was one of the most beautiful things I've seen. (Please don't tell me they were preparing to lay a million eggs and have my pear tree devoured by caterpillars! If they did, they are welcome--it was worth it to see them!)
Kylie! Ugh about the poor birds gorging themselves on the grain to the detriment of their aerodynamics! Gotta watch the hidden cost of those free lunches!
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Sharon
Rachel, your purple bushes sound like a great seasonal marker! Divine to have that splash of colour for winter!
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Sharon
Hi Kandy! How lovely that you're having a season of butterflies too. I'm sure they wouldn't be so rude as to be after your pear tree... but it they are, you won't hear it from me!
ReplyDelete;)
Sharon