Though denying ever being away with the fairies (Fairy Gerygones and Wrens are different cases!), I admit to chasing after dragonflies (click pic to enlarge), butterflies and pretty creatures whenever mood takes and chance offers. So, three results of pursuit - with variations on the theme of yellow and green:
First, the lumberingly named but aerially agile Austrogomphus prasinus. A male, the guidebook relates, as shown by the yellow, forked rear appendages. This dragonfly sped into view today and drifted from stem to stem of giant cane grass after drawing me away from butterflies (below) clustered on a cane road.
The Common Grass Yellows (Eurame hecabe) were gathered in several places along the sandy gravelled road sipping (licking?) salts after light rain overnight and this morning. Also popular with the 40mm wingspan butterflies was a flattened patch of horse dung. No other of the several butterfly species in the area showed interest in the gravel or the dung.
Finally, a small Lace Monitor (Varanus varius) encountered a few days ago (pre-Cyclone Hamish alerts) near Dungeness boat ramp, where the Herbert River emerges into the bottom end of the Hinchenbrook Channel. The monitor stopped sunning itself and skittered across the road when it saw me coming camera in hand. It disappeared - as they say, like a rat up a drainpipe - up a drainpipe!
Such ability to vanish like a fairy in a yellow funk leaves me green with envy.
