After shaking off the grip of the Wuhan Flu, I’d been itching to get out and about in search of some new leps. Last weekend I finally pulled the trigger, hitting up Mt Flinders on Saturday and then taking Dr. Chris “I hate butterflies” Burwell up to Mt Glorious on Sunday arvo. ‘Twas nice to get out of the hĂĽs for a bit.
I have to confess to shamelessly ripping off Colin’s blog format – his ‘weekends that were’ can be found here. Thanks Colin!
Mt Flinders
Mt Flinders is the tallest peak in the Teviot Range, and rises a somewhat imposing ~670m above the surrounding landscape. It’s part of a large conservation reserve that’s home to several rares. As it is so tall and surrounded by decent habitat I thought it would be worth a sniff in the arvo. Sadly, due to the bumper almost falling off the red rocket and requiring emergency repair I arrived a bit later than I’d hoped. At the final creek crossing there was a bit of activity so I stopped for a sec – Yellow Albatross, Purple Crow, White-banded Plane and a lone Monarch were all kicking around here.
Parking up it was hot as hell. I got my gear together and headed up the track – seeing nothing out of the ordinary for probably the first kilometre of the climb. From memory I had Small Dusky and Common Grass Blues, more Monarchs, some Blue Tigers and a few Large Grass-yellows. Frustratingly, the ‘Butterflies’ app which I was using to keep my species list failed to save properly (again). Once in the forest I had a weird looking Ringlet, which I am now happy is Grey Ringlet (after some consultation of the tomes). This was a bit of a sanitation tick for me.
Continuing upwards, I stopped briefly at the first scree slope (with some vine-thicket plants) and hung out there for a bit – Lemon Migrants, Caper Gulls, Pale Triangle and a few Caper Whites were buzzing around down low and some Hairy Line-blues were defending territories in the canopy. It was here that I noticed that I was fucking hot and gassed. I gathered my wits and pressed on up the mountain, seeing virtually nothing until the penultimate climb before the ridge flattens out and you get to the ‘stepping stones’. In the grass here I had a nice Dingy Grass Skipper ripping around as well as a couple of Grass Darts. I am happy with the identity of one – Green Grass Dart (Ocybadistes walkeri) – my first and only leplifer of the day.
Across the ‘Pillars of Doom’ there were some No-brand Grass Yellows and a White which, frustratingly, refused to land. I was VERY hot by this stage so hitting the ridge and the accompanying cool breeze was pleasing. Some more Toxidia were buzzing around in the wind shadow, along with a Glistening Pencil-blue. I decided to park up for a bit once the track started going down and got out some vittles and a coconut water can from my cold bag. Chewing away my jaw suddenly locked up as I came face to face with a real crippler – Sarcochilus ceciliae.
I staggered on with the intention of visiting the endemic stinkbush – but it was not to be. On reaching the saddle I checked the time and was shaken when I saw that it was now 1650! Time to bail. I put the optics away, had a big gulp of water and hooted down. I haven’t been running much and dropping ~500m in elevation in about 20 minutes had my quads quivering for about 6 days. On the way down I passed three groups of people heading up – it always boggles me when this happens. It was getting late in the day and they all had at least an hour of ascent to go (assuming their goal was the summit). One bloke was in thongs! Mental. Overheating at the carpark, I stripped off and jumped in the creek until my core temp was back to normal. I then grabbed some seed from Auranticarpa rhombifolia, which was dripping with fruit, before cruising home to collapse in a heap. Can’t believe I used to run that mountain!
Mt Glorious
I still had itchy feet the next day – after some discussions with CJB we decided to sniff Mt Glorious. I picked him up and we zoomed up to Maiala. Upon our arrival (literally within 30 seconds) it started to pour with rain. This was a major piss-off as it had been bright and sunny for the entire drive up! I rumbled a Melomys from a tree hollow in the car park as we moped around. She had two little fluffballs hanging from her teats and I deleriously blurted out ‘it’s got chicks!’, drawing a sardonic glare from Dr. B. After bickering for a while we headed into the forest, seeing the square root of fuck all in about an hour of dejectedly wandering about. Chris photographed a Common Flatwing for some reason but I couldn’t summon the energy. An ovipositing Northern Evening Darner brought a brief frisson of excitement at the same spot, but that was quickly eroded by the constant stream of NTs passing by on the track. I was fucking tired and my quads were pretty sore. Motivation was at an all time low. A semi-slug (unsurprisingly) failed to dull the pain.
Once we got back to the carpark though, it was ON. The sun was back out and the leps were fired up. Regent Skipper melted my retinas as always, and a Dark Shield-skipper was a lifer.
We also had excellent views of a pair of courting Yellow-spotted Jezebels, a Macleay’s Swallowtail and some other skippers which I reckon looked good for Southern Large Darter – but which I’ve left off my list for now. I needed some upperwing shots to clinch them, which I dipped. After crawling through a tunnel in the undergrowth to get some ID shots of the crippling moth Burgena varia, Chris and I headed to the (impossibly distant) Wivenhoe Outlook, only to get back in the car basically instantly and head back towards Samford (passing the famous Elm Haus cafĂ©). We stopped briefly at a creek to search for Odes but left on sunset. I picked up some curry from Punjabi Palace on the way home, watched some tennis with J, and had an early night. Across the weekend I think I saw about 30 butterfly species and harvested 3 (possibly 4) lifers. Not bad!
