Notes

I’d been photographing butterflies for 2 decades before I eventually managed to get a shot of this species.  My chance finally came at Bodallin in Western Australia; I was hanging around a flowering shrub in the hope that a female Ogyris idmo would return to it, when I spotted the dazzling blue of a male oroetes flashing around a tree right next to me. The tree was host to a few clumps of the oroetes‘ mistletoe foodplant, and to my amazement he landed in the lowest of these at around waist height. I wasn’t able to get a photo then, but the next day I saw him again, circling the tree and frequently settling on dead branches.

I was prepared for this, as I’d already attached my 300mm lens to my camera, instead of my usual 150mm macro, and after about 20 minutes I had several long-distance shots of him. Finally, as if to answer all my prayers, he decided to land low down and I was able to get a decent close-up photo.

It’s a shame that oroetes, as with all Ogyris, doesn’t sit with its wings open. Its upperside is such an amazing colour but when it lands it only shows the cryptic underside, though glimpses of the blue can sometimes be seen when it moves its hind wings up and down in that typical Lycaenid manner.

Sightings

Links

• The Complete Field Guide to Australian Butterflies (2nd edition) by Michael F. Braby
• Atlas of Living Australia
• South Australian Butterflies & Moths
• Global Biodiversity Information Facility
• iNaturalist
• Butterflies of Australia (Don Herbison-Evans)
• Bob’s Butterflies