Hi all
We knew after last December's Hluhluwe-iMfolozi weekend that we'd have to go back. Jenny Norman was never going to let me live that missed Lilac Tip
Colotis celimene amina down... plus the weather hadn't been great and we all felt more was possible. So we set off on Good Friday at sparrows. Jenny and Sandi were with us again, this time with Dave Bishop and his partner Jo Savage, Elena Russell and Gill Leisegang. Dave brought his trailer along, which was good of him as we had a mountain of gear.
The good news was that this time we were booked into the Research Camp at Hluhluwe, which would be less basic than the camp we had last time. And as our guide and guard we had the hawk-eyed Joseph Dhlamini again.
True to form, as we set off up the N2 we could see it was dull and cloudy. And it got worse. When we got to Nyalazi Gate and checked in, we found out the Hluhluwe River was in spate and we had to drive ALL they way back to the N2, up to Hluhluwe town and then to Memorial Gate. Here it was very dull, but warm and there were butterflies... including this female Straight-line Sapphire
Iolaus silarus silarus, unfortunately on a
Lantana camara...
As we drove in, we could see loads of butterflies on
Lippia javanica but could not get out to look, as Joseph was waiting for us at Research. So we hot footed it (well as hot as your foot can get at 40kph) and got there at 11am - 5 1/2 hours after setting off!
To find that the storm that had flooded the river had blown the power at the camp... and it was Jo's birthday that weekend and they'd brought a Lamb potjie along. So we decided to make do and have that tonight - and put up with warm beers. Dave had the foresight to go buy some ICE from nearby Hilltop camp, which has generators...
We set off along the road, and even though it was dull it was over 26
oC and butterflies were quite numerous. We found a mating pair of Common Hottentots
Gegenes niso -
Not far from here we found a female Small Orange Tip Colotis evagore antigone posing nicely - well almost!
And then we found a quite large, flat hilltop area with plenty of butterflies. We found an
Aloeides here - looked like a
swanepoeli to me at this stage but I wasn't happy with that ID because the habitat was wrong. The girls were happy as the lifers were starting to arrive (at least for Ellie and Gill - Jenny and Sandi are on the diminishing returns curve!) and I was happy because I got an upper side shot of Dark Webbed Ringlet
Physcaeneura panda...
By this time we knew we were not going to make it into iMfolozi this day so we asked Joseph if he knew a good hilltop in easy range. True to form he did, and we went off on a loop road that took us over a series of low hills - towards Seme lookout. Our first stop produced a very dopy female Yellow Pansy Junonia hierta cebrene; she was obviously feeling cool and kept opening her wings to warm herself up... so we took advantage:
Then we went up a slightly higher hill and found it was covered in
Lippia javanica plants. These had lots of little lycaenids on them, including this male Talbot's Hairtail
Anthene talboti:
There were also, amongst the hordes of Black-striped Hairtails
Anthene amarah, a few Brilliant Gem females
Chloroselas pseudozeritis pseudozeritis. This is where Joseph came into his own - just as I focused on one it would zip off, but there was Joseph pointing at another bush - 'here it is Steve'. Brilliant!
There were also a few Zulu Shadeflies Coenyra hebe around. They were skulking around in the undergrowth playing hard to get. One male drove us up the wall, but eventually I nailed a shot:
I was lucky though - he kept messing us around until he landed on one flower and suddenly went into a spasm. Closer examination showed he'd been zapped by a Crab Spider, which kind of served him right for being so darned difficult!
We suddenly realised we still had a long road back to camp - and it was getting late. So we went back. The trap we'd hung at camp had produced quite a few
Charaxes and as we sipped on a restorative G'n'T, the power came back on! And there was a male Bush Nightfighter
Artitropa erinnys sitting on one of the windows of the Green House we were staying in...
That night, good cheer flowed and we all wished Jo a very happy 16th birthday... but it'd been a long day and we were all in bed well before 10.
The next day was forecast hot clear and sunny so we arranged for Joseph to come at 6am and had a very early breakfast. We were disappointed to find cloudy and dull weather, and it was not just forest mist - the clouds hung around all the way to Mpila Camp in iMfolozi. We stopped at a couple of places to hang traps on the way, and had a break at Mpila.
The next plan was to climb the koppie we'd gone up back in December, to see if any Giant Emperor
Charaxes castor flavifasciatus had turned up. We were not disappointed; two males were dogfighting around the koppie and as it was dull they posed nicely with wings open, trying to warm themselves up:
We also found a Pennington's Buff
Cnodontes penningtoni in a tree on the side of the koppie:
But it was still dull and cloudy, and we could see the sun starting to shine off to the west. So off we went towards Okhukho. We found a half-built dam on the way, with lots of
Triumfetta growing on the disturbed soil. Here, we found some new records, and lots of little lycaenids...
Male Mashuna Hairtail
Anthene contrastata mashuna
Male Silver-spotted Grey
Crudaria leroma
Eventually we decided it was time to go look for the Lilac Tip. I had been on Google Earth and seen some likely looking country to the west of where we'd seen one in 2009. I seriously didn't expect to see one on the same tree we'd seen one flying around last year, but there he was! Jenny and Sandy were so happy to see one (Ellie and Gill had gone back to camp with Jo and Dave) and I caught it as a voucher. We went into the 'promising looking country' and didn't see another! We did however find another
Aloeides, this one was just as reluctant to be photographed as the first but I got a good look at it and it was definitely
A.damarensis mashuna. We took the male
Colotis celimene amina back to camp and got this shot in captivity:
I had to take him home to get him to open his wings:
On the Sunday, the weather was dull again - we did get a few pix, and found an area with a lot of Acacia tortilis in flower. Despite risking my net and searching a lot of trees, we didn't find Little Hairtail
Anthene minima.
And then on Monday it rained, so we went home...
Some more shots taken over the weekend can be seen on these posts:
photocamel.com/forum/macro-close-up-phot...rflies-imfolozi.html
photocamel.com/forum/macro-close-up-phot...es-last-weekend.html
photocamel.com/forum/macro-close-up-phot...rflies-imfolozi.html
photocamel.com/forum/macro-close-up-phot...s-turntail-moth.html
Cheers
Steve
