I’m writing this in isolation, recovering from Covid-19. So, what to do while stuck at home? Well, it’s midsummer in a La Nina, we’ve had buckets of rain, the garden has been well watered and the weeds are rampant. But many visitors would think that our garden is just weeds anyway. Certainly the real estate agents who’ve had a look are rather sniffy. I am not a lawn (= sterile patch of exotic weeds) person.

We moved in 18 years ago, when the ‘garden’ was like the forgotten corner of a small field – open grass and weeds with a few small bottle brushes. Through a lot of trial and error and happily spending a fortune at local nurseries we have planted most of the garden with a range of native trees, shrubs and perennials, to encourage other native flora and native fauna to move in.

I’ve written before about finding a rare beetle feeding on the wonga vines. But many other insects have moved in. Last week I saw five different native bees on the flowers (Everlasting, Hop Goodenia, Mint Bush etc). One of them stung me, so, yes, not all native bees are stingless! And in the brief periods of sunshine a few butterflies were around, including the common pencil-blue (Candalides absimilis). The male of common pencil-blue is cobalt blue above, whereas the female is almost black with round white central patches on each wing – both are silvery-white below with faint speckling. This species is a locally common garden and forest species that feeds on rainforest trees (including our macadamia, firewheel and tuckeroo trees) and exotics like Robinia and Senna.

The common pencil-blue is one of 21 butterfly species I’ve seen in the garden. The standard identification reference is an excellent fieldguide for our 400 butterfly species by Mike Braby (The Complete Field Guide to Butterflies of Australia, CSIRO Publishing, 2016). In it you’ll find a lot of strange names, as collectors have tried to give an English (vernacular) name to each species. So there are familiar browns, blues, yellows, whites etc, but also admirals, emperors, owls, crows, albatross, moonbeams, flashes, demons and jezebels. My favourites are the jezebels and we’ve had two species in the garden.

Many butterflies just pass through, not breeding. But most of the species I’ve seen could be breeding in the garden. The evidence is their caterpillars but these can be surprisingly difficult to find. Most readers will know the green cabbage white larva on their brassicas and many will know the spiny-blob orchard swallowtail caterpillar on citrus. But many of our common garden butterfly caterpillars live inconspicuously in treetops or on grasses. The jezebels feed only on mistletoes.

I don’t usually look at our paper daisies too carefully as they are for show rather than wildlife but during isolation I realised that they were looking a bit scruffier than usual. The leaves were missing patches, there was silk webbing and some poo stuck in it. Poking around I found the culprits – caterpillars of the Australian painted lady (Vanessa kershawi). So I don’t mind if the plants get a bit damaged as the beautiful butterflies more than make up for it.

How many butterfly species do you have?

I hope those of you who have or have had C19 are well, and the rest of you stay well.

For general insect enquiries, visit australianmuseum.net.au/learn/species-identification or email queries for Chris to editor@2508mag.com.au