Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Park

On 16 December 2009, 13 of us met at Hluhluwe's Reseach camp to do a long overdue SABCA survey of the park's butterflies. Silvia Mecenero's gap analysis all the quarter-degree squares for which we had no data and four of them covered the iMfolozi part of the park - 2831BA, BB, BC and BD. So we set up a survey visit with Dave Druce and Bheka Nxele of Ezemvelo, and off we went. There was nearly a disaster when Jenny Norman discovered that the bookings had been made for the weekend before the 16th, not the one after, but Bheka sorted that out - unfortunately this meant he had to miss most of the survey, because he had to be in Stellenbosch on the 17th to register for his phD.

I'd been on Google Earth and it was very useful to 'fly' over the reserve from the comfort of my iMac at home, using vegetation overlays and spying out promising hills and bush. Sadly when we go there, it turned out a lot were in the inaccessible Wilderness Area in the south of iMfolozi, but we did get to some of the others.

We were a mixed bunch. Quentin Austin and I have been butterflying together for years. Birder-butterflyers Jenny Norman and Sandi du Preez are old hands at SABCA surveys. Jeff Crocombe, an Aussie living in Cape Town, has some experience in surveying in the Western Cape, and Heinz Ortmann, a student at Stellenbosch, was a veteran of childhood collecting trips with Kevin Cockburn and me. New e-member Adrian de Goede and his family were on their first Lepsoc trip. Brian and Lizelle Plowes, who are doing a lot of useful work in Zululand, brought their three-week old son Matthew along - surely the youngest lepidopterist ever to come on a survey! He was well blooded and the Plowes lepidopterist dynasty is definitely set to continue!

Apart from Brian, Lizelle and Matthew - whose special needs made it wiser for him to stay under a roof - we all camped at the basic but peaceful Maphumalo campsite.

As we were planning to give a training presentation to the Honorary Officers in the afternoon, we decided not to go deep into iMfolozi the first day. Bheka organised a game viewing vehicle and we spent the day on the Isivivaneni Loop, and finished off at a high forested hill in the closed section of the park behind research.

Isivivaneni is a very picturesque spot:

Although it was sunny, there was a very strong wind blowing. Butterflies weren't as numerous as we'd hoped. Most were Pierids. The only lycaenid we saw in numbers was the Gaika (or Tiny Grass) Blue Zizula hylax:

There were some forest species on the hilltop area, including Rufous-winged Flat Eagris nottoana nottoana, which I have never got a good pic of and this one was no exception- he made off as soon as I trained the Nikon on him. But there were not as many species around as we'd hoped. In compensation, we did find huge numbers of these delicious Natal Milkplum fruit Englerophytum natalense:

The butterflies that use this plant as larval food - genus Pseudacraea - were absent, but they must be around, judging from the abundance of the trees.

There was good cheer in the camp that night, and one or two sore heads the next day. The second day (17th) saw our numbers reduced, Brian and Adrian and their families only having come up for the one night. And poor Quentin had a dose of Shaka's Revenge and elected to stay in camp to recover. The weather was perfect - hot and sunny. Jeff and I drove in Zaddachi the Subaru with Joseph Dhlamini, our assigned field ranger. His gimlet eyes proved very valuable! Jenny and Sandi drove in Jenny's Toyota with Heinz.

We set as an objective, some high ground in the extreme north west of iMfolozi - the Noma Hills and the Okhukho Loop. We went via Mpila Camp and found several hilltopping species there. I watched a female Vine-leaf Vagrant Eronia cleodora laying on Capparis fascicularis; I was able to stack the eggs that evening but the larvae turned their noses up at my Capparis sepiaria at home so I failed to breed them through.

Jeff found a freshly emerged Peach Moth Egybollis vaillantina posing very nicely:

I was just telling him how attractive the larvae are when he found one on a bush right next to where he saw the adult:

Just west of Mpila we found a very promising looking low hill, which proved to be a high bluff overlooking the White iMfolozi. There were several hilltopping butterflies around, including this Pearl-spotted Emperor Charaxes jahlusa argynnides captured by Jeff:

We also found the only Buff-tipped Skipper Netrobalane canopus of the trip. It was an interesting place - we found a Large Sourplum Ximenia caffra on the hillside and it proved to have lycaenid eggs on it. Using the stacking technique it proved there were two different types, and breeding them through, they were Bowker's Sapphire Iolaus (Stugeta) bowkeri and Saffron Sapphire I.pallene. The latter remains Jenny Norman's bogey butterfly as we failed to spot an adult. She said an egg doesn't count as a tick in her book; we'll see if she changes her mind when the adults emerge!

Iolaus bowkeri egg above, first instar larva below

Iolaus pallene eggs below; first instar larva below that

They are currently just into third instar, at which stage the larvae become radically different. From these images it is clear that the eggs and first instar larvae can be separated using a hand lens, which is good news. I suspect pallene's life history has not yet been photographically published, so I will do so in an upcoming Metamorphosis.

The same hilltop was home to a tiny Hairtail (Anthene sp.) which refused to be caught or photographed. As it was circling a horribly thorny Acacia tortilis it could easily have been Little Hairtail A.minima, but confirmation will probably need another visit. There were also some black male Charaxes, which could be either Van Son's C.vansoni or Demon C.phaeus. Vouchers will have to be wait for genitalic ID.

We spent so long on the hilltop that we compromised our plans to climb Noma Hill - by the time we got to the base it was already 1400 and we would never have done it and got back to camp before curfew. So we drove around Okhukho Loop, making records the while - but not many as it was a very overgrazed and bleak part of the park. There were a lot of whites, the overwhelming majority of them African Common White Belenois creona severina. On the way back, I spotted a white showing strangely familiar behaviour. It was flying in fairly tight circles about 5m up next to a tall straight Boerboon tree. We got out and we walked over to it - from closer up the forewing tips were clearly visible in flight - Lilac Tip Colotis celimene amina! There was no sign of the ladies and Heinz, and I decided to catch it as a voucher before it flew off. Of course I messed it up and it escaped - and then Jenny and her crew arrived. Did I get some stick! I don't think she's ever going to forgive me...

We kept bumping into these megaherbivores:

Our third day, Friday the 18th, dawned beautifully after a clear night with leopards sawing and hyenas whooping across the river from the camp. But as we ate breakfast it clouded up, and by the time we were on the road it was overcast, but warm. Perfect photography weather...

Our objective was a high point just west of the Black iMfolozi with a section ranger's camp. This proved to be quite a productive hilltop. Apart from some Charaxes we found some nice lycaenids like this Tailed Black-eye that Jeff got a really good shot of:

There was also a Delagoa Sandman Spialia delagoae male, who was VERY HARD to get to sit still:

We then went down to a flat area just south of the river. Jeff got some great photos like this female Scarlet Tip Colotis danae annae:

We saw the glorious yellow-hindwing-underside f.anax of the Queen Purple Tip Colotis regina, but they were far to fly to photograph. I saw one on a flower at the side of the road, scrunched to a halt but by the time I'd extricated the Nikon from all the nets, sandwich bags etc on the back seat she'd gone. Jenny said it served me right for stuffing up the Lilac Tip! We did return to that spot, where we found some an interesting lycaenid - Ella's Bar Cigaritis ella, a lifer for Heinz and Sandi.

Saturday 19th brought more cloudy, warm weather and this time we decided to climb another of the points I'd pinpointed using Google Earth - the 370m Mantiyane, on the edge of the Wilderness Area. This was quite a long walk with Joseph keeping a sharp eye out for large fierce pussies and other denizens of the park. The weather tried to brighten up but by the time we reached the summit it was very dull - there were a few hilltoppers and some new records, but not as much as there'd have been if the sun had been out.

Cupreous Blue Eicochrysops messapus mahallokoeana (long name for a tiny insect!) was a trash butterfly as the hillside was carpeted with its larval foodplant Thesium. Jenny found this pair mating:

Another common insect was D'urban's Woolly Legs Lachnocnema durbani:

We were able to see a Spotted Joker Byblia ilithyia female ovipositing, and to my joy I got an egg to stack - a difficult one with all those tiny hairs, but Zerene Stacker coped very well:

Another interesting find was this Owlfly, a really beautiful thing:

At the top, Sandi took this pic of Joseph and me:

Also on the top, we found this injured Lappet-faced Vulture, photographed by Jeff, which could not fly away. It seemed convinced we were going to eat it, and kept hiding its head under its wings, poor thing. Joseph radioed the section ranger as this is a rare bird but he was told to let nature take her course...

We also found this glorious female Pale Ranger Kedestes callicles:

There were a few African Ringlets Ypthima asterope asterope around:

We went back to the Lilac Tip spot AGAIN but still no dice. Looking at this area in Google Earth one can see that it is a very sparsely vegetated, arid area with lots of red sand soil - just like C.celimene's haunts in Limpopo. So a return in March-April and a foot safari in this area should bear fruit. Another lycaenid showed itself - the Silver-spotted Grey Crudaria leroma - a lifer for Jenny, but she wasn't mollified...

We found some Pierid larvae on a Capparis; I took some home and reared them through to see what would come out. Unfortunately no new records but I did get some new life history pix: these shots are the Veined Tip Colotis vesta argillaceus:

Larva

Pupa:

Freshly emerged adult on hatched pupa:

On the last day we decided to go into the Hluhluwe forests and get the species count above the 80-odd it was sitting at on Saturday evening. In this we were successful, getting to 125 species in total. The forests were very impressive but butterfly numbers were relatively small. A Clouded Mother-of-Pearl delighted Sandi and Heinz, for whom it was a lifer. Photography is always difficult in high forests where most sightings are via binoculars or extension nets - but I managed to get a couple:

Christmas Forester Celaenorrhinus mokeezi mokeezi:

Female Forest Leopard Phalanta eurytis ovipositing on Kei-Apple Dovyalis; sadly we could not find the eggs!

All in all it was a successful trip - we nailed records in all four iMfolozi QDS's and found out a lot about the reserve that will stand us in good stead when we make a return visit in autumn. A full report will be submitted to Ezemvelo management, and published in Metamorphosis.

All the best for 2010

Steve Woodhall