Ulysses continue to flutter by

Ulysses (Papilio ulysses) butterflies close wings upon landing and thus hide their startling blue colours. Their erratic and swift fluttering makes photography difficult.

Almost got the full blue image in Tyto yesterday, only to have butterfly turn and offer underside view as it left tulip tree flowers.

More Grey Goshawk chasing but this Masked Lapwing (Vanellus miles) the only usable picture after five clear sightings. Lapwings sped down main lagoon, tailed half-heartedly by the goshawk, which had probably been chasing other prey.

Also in the air over the lagoons, White-bellied Sea-Eagle (Haliaeetus leucogaster), and an Eastern Great Egret (Ardea modesta), on Saturday. Egrets and ducks all take off when sea-eagles appear. Wisely. Big raptors have big appetites. (Today, more panic with Swamp Harrier taking keen interest reed shallows at western end of lagoon.)

An earlier picture shows egrets don't offer much meat. Wouldn't want to live on pickings from those wings!

Ulysses and the lilies

Ulysses butterflies clearly don't realise what glorious sights they make when out on the swamp lilies. Mostly, they jitter about among the trees - where they are almost impossible to frame for photographs. But it's 'wow' on those rare days when one gets out on the water flowers. (A snag with the lily flowers is their featheriness, so fine, light and tiny they almost always look out of focus.)

Another touch of local colour among the lilies: White-browed Crake pauses near the water before going back to 'tuk tuk tucking' in amid the scleria. 

Lot of rain and sudden heavy showers in past few days. Adding to those woes, my modem turned pyscho and refused to recognise me! Sorted out after Telstra on-line techie took it over and gave it a swift kick up the password!

Got into Tyto for a dryish spell today. Forget the jokes, all the rain has meant the ducks have gone. Along with much else. Kingfishers aplenty, including an Azure teasing a sleek juvenile with a fish it seemed reluctant to pass on. But some days, as with the Fairy Gerygone above, there's always a branch or two in the way. But at least the modem's behaving...

The Bad, the Ugly and the Beautiful

Steamy stuff in the daytime? Sounds a bit like soap opera to me. We'll call it The Bad, the Ugly and the Beautiful!  

Not so bad to look at, but ugly is as ugly does. And what the Cane Toad (Bufo marinus) does is reproduce its poisonous self in noisome numbers: up to 30,000 eggs per female a season. Perhaps 99% will not survive. Still leaves 300 to do their worst. Look closely and you'll see a chain of black eggs stretching along the flank of the male toad (above, at work in Tyto. Click to enlarge).

Hard to see bad barbed wire as anything but ugly, even with an attractive young Welcome Swallow (Hirundo neoxena) taking a comfort stretch upon its rustiness. But I was taken with the colour match between rust and parts of the bird. (Note to barbed wire collectors: I don't think this is a rare piece.)

Nothing ugly about the Ulysses butterfly (Papilio ulysses), though the brilliant blue coloration signals a warning against swallowing the swallowtails. The males sip salts from small puddles, in part to produce pheromones to attract females. Their liquid uptake - and throughput - must be considerable as this butterfly spent several minutes moving from puddle to tiny puddle and produced scores of drops, such as that shown.

Nothing ugly or bad about Plumed Whistling Ducks (Dendrocygna eytoni). Two have taken up temporary quarters in a waterlogged corner of the caravan park. Funnily enough, Plumed Whistlers can give the impression they are averse to water. They stand around by day, prefer ground landings to splashdowns, will breed far from water, and feed nocturnally on grasses and other low growth.

Well, that didn't go so badly, did it?