Yolande and I attended a Tree ID Course at the Walter Sisulu Botanical Gardens on Saturday, 17 April and while doing the practical session we noted a number of Common Diadem Hypolimnas misipuss feeding on Crassula sarcocaulis flowers. As we did not yet have any decent shots of a male we decided to return on Sunday morning.

On our arrival it was partly clousy and our intended targets were nowhere to be seen. We decided to take a walk to a spot where we had seen Charexes flying around on Saturday. We soon spotted two involved in a territorial squabble over sap seeping from a Buddleja salviifolia. The winner of the squabble turned out to be a White-barred Emperor Charaxes brutus natalensis which proceed to suckle at the sap. The loser was this fellow – a rather tattered Green-veined Emperor Charaxes candiope, which then gave us a chance to get our first upper side shots of this species.

By this time the sun had made a decent enough appearance that we decided to return to the spot where we had previously spotted the Diadems. There were a number of males flying about and a single female. With a little patience we were able to get these shots of them.

By this time the sun had made a decent enough appearance that we decided to return to the spot where we had previously spotted the Diadems. There were a number of males flying about and a single female. With a little patience we were able to get these shots of them

Well done! I've never actually seen C.candiope in our area. I wonder if that is one of Little Malta's population I also haven't seen C.brutus this season, but apparently they survived last winter...