Cute as a button

Reassuring note to button-phobics: There are no buttons in this post.

Mum and daughter pademelons catching the sun.
These two are regular visitors to the garden.

Daughter poses for the camera while mum snoozes.

This mum and joey combo have just turned up on my property.
A timid pair, they have found a spot at the far edge of the garden to their liking. They're welcome to stay as long as they like. (Because of their caution, I had to take these photos through the windows, which need a good clean. As you can probably tell.)

Dad keeps out of the way.

Shiny!

The beauty of this fruit-piercing noctuid moth (Othreis iridescens) did not become wholly apparent until I saw it in full light. This is a Far North Queensland endemic, which, although it feeds on fruit, is not considered to be a pest. (And even if it were, you'd cut it some slack, wouldn't you?)

The vines Pycnarrhena novoguineensis and Hypserpa laurina (both Menispermaceae) are known as host plants.

(This is a live individual, but it was having an off day, by the look of things.)

When the sun shines

Confused by the lack of rain, a pademelon joey hides from the strange warm light shining down from the sky.

The last hurrah

Autumn in the tropical rainforest is a the subtle transition from the Wet Season into the Slightly Drier Season. Days are mild and nights are deliciously cool. It won't be long before I will have to drag out the sheepskin slippers (checking them first for spiders and centipedes before I put them on.) And after that a jumper and beanie and fingerless gloves. Try not to picture the scene.

The change in season is also marked by a decline in the butterfly population. The brightly coloured swallowtails have gone. If they have any sense, they will be heading down the mountain towards the coast, where the temperature is still relatively high. Otherwise it's three pairs of slippers, a jumper and very small beanie for each of them too. Maybe a flannel shirt too, given that we're in the country.

Before they disappeared, the butterflies went through a flurry of egg-laying. While this blue triangle (Graphium sarpedon) was laying her eggs, a couple of small green-banded blues (Psychonotis caelius) fluttered around her. I'm not sure what set them off — perhaps they regarded her as a competitor for ovipositing sites, because her preferred plant was next to theirs. And being coloured blue is just asking for trouble.

I had planned to colect some eggs to raise the caterpillars, but most of them did not last long, probably picked off by the gangs of scrubwrens that forage in the garden each afternoon. I should have been faster. Maybe next year.

Female blue triangle ovipositing on host plant. Neither picture
nor common name does justice to these exquisite butterflies.

Blue triangle egg. It was gone in minutes.

Green-banded blue having a short rest before resuming
its frantic fluttering around the blue triangle.