Well, spring is here, and it’s time to start and see what the story is with invertebrate life, after a sparse and concerning previous season. The weather is still cool however, but a warmer day was worth a look at two local sites, the local cemetery where a small area of remnant grassy plains woodland has been preserved, and the rail trail. At the cemetery, Riceflower, Common Everlasting, Early Nancy, and Billy-buttons were starting to show up, the latter popular with hoverflies.
Out on the rail trail Hardenbergia was flowering nicely, in contrast to many areas in the bush where wallabies looking for food in the dry conditions have browsed it right down to ground level. Several native bees, Lasioglossum (Chilalictus) callophylae were busy collecting the whitish pollen and happy to allow a close camera approach.
Little was seen in the way of Lepidoptera, just the odd Common Grass Blue butterfly, and Reddish Wave moth, Scopula rubraria. Both were too flighty to allow snaps. A bank of planted hakeas beside the trail is usually a good place to look for spiders, and two very small orb weavers were found.
This wary individual saw the camera coming, and moved quickly from its web to its retreat in a notch on the stem, where it was very well camouflaged.
Little is showing up in the native garden yet, a wander around with the camera yielded just two subjects, a tiny case moth clothed with scraps of bark, and a Trichiocercus sparshalli larva. Click the latter for a larger view.
