Lawn Butterfly

I always have little ‘blues’ on my lawn; small butterflies, some tiny that flit about too small, too fast and too pale for my camera to get a decent shot. They usually look little pale grey beauties.

But yesterday one was different, bigger; so I out with the camera and managed to get two fuzzy pics:

I thought ‘Hairtail;’ iNaturalist got back in seconds and said ‘Hairstreak;’ Now I’m thinking maybe one of the Sapphires? The fascinating thing about identifying creatures is . . names change! Knowledge is constantly being updated. Often the only real way to know what you’re looking at is to ask an expert, as even the most recent books are out of date to different extents. They keep up to the minute and usually instantly have a pretty good idea of what they’re looking at, taking image, location, time of year, etc into account.

I’ll update when I find out what this beauty is. And I’ll keep an eye out for a better picture.

Ah! Suncana says its Iolaus silas, the Southern Sapphire! Sun is our in-house entomologist on our Palmiet Rangers whatsapp group, and has a Palmiet project on iNaturalist, which I have now joined. She sent a better pic – Steve Woodhall’s from biodiversityexplorer.info

– Southern Sapphire Iolaus silas – Steve Woodhall on biodiversityexplorer.info –
– tiny yellow meadow flower – while I was down there –

~~~oo0oo~~~

Bonus! Pictures from a Palmiet neighbour who’s a great photographer. Most (all?) taken right here in our valley:

– Roger Hogg photos –
– red-fronted tinker – Roger Hogg –

~~~oo0oo~~~

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