Gertude Petty | Mount Gravatt Environment Group

Geutrude Petty Place Buscare site is alive with butterflies at the moment. The work Sue and the team have done removing weeds and planting native grasses and shrubs is really paying off with the rain we have been getting this summer. With the weeds removed natural regeneration means a large number of different native grasses and sedges have returned a critical success factor for bringing back the butterflies.

I photographed two new butterflies this morning which have not previously been recorded on Mt Gravatt.

A Spotted Sedge-skipper – Hesperilla ornata posed on some native Barbed Wire grass. Saw Sedge which is indigenous to the Reserve, is the laval food plant for the Spotted Sedge-skipper. With natural regeneration bringing back the native sedges we can expect to see more of these beautiful butterflies on Mt Gravatt in the future. This is particularly important because these butterflies are classed as “uncommon” in Braby’s Butterflies of Australia.

I also found this male White-banded Plane – Phaedyma shepherdi.

At 55mm these are quite a large butterfly for Brisbane. The patterns on the wings identify this specimen as a male.

I also found Splendid Ochre – Trapezites symmomus and Small Dusky-blue – Candalides erinus butterflies.

Mike

Mt Gravatt Reserve is a unique island of Queensland bushland ten minutes from Brisbane CBD and home to Koalas, Echidnas, twenty seven different types of butterfly and dozens of birds.

The Reserve is Queensland State Governement land held in trust by the Brisbane City Council which in partnership with the community manages recreation, conservaiton of biodiversity, scenic amenity, heritage and social values of the site.

The amazing biodiversity of Mt Gravatt Reserve can be appreciated by considering in 66 hectares 245 native plant species have been identified which is equal to 10% of the total plant diversity in the 32 million hectares of England, Scotland and Wales.

Mount Gravatt Environment Group (MEG) is an umbrella group for four active groups of BCC Habitat Brisbane Bushcare volunteers restoring different parts of this bushland. Restoration activities range from removal of weeds/rubbish and planting of indiginous plant species to researching and mapping of plant and animal species, community education and consultation with BCC land management teams.

MEG supports bushcare groups restoring: