Choices, choices

Instead of a two-fer like yesterday, here I have a four-fer.

We had a wonderful blip meet with Spikes2013 from New Zealand, and as luck would have it, Sophie Thompson was holding an Open Garden.  So despite a time constraint, we hot-footed it up to Mt. Barker to the garden, and boy oh boy did we have just the best time!

Right at the front entrance was a huge Senecio vira-vira bush in full flower, and it was covered, literally covered, in butterflies (there's a couple of painted ladies in extras) and hover flies.

In this one image there is a skipper I've never seen before - White-banded Grass-dart (Taractrocera papyria papyria); a Golden Native Drone Fly  (Eristalinus (Lathyrophthalmus) punctulatus), the dude with the spotted eyes, and stripped waistcoat; and at the bottom a couple of wasp-mimicking drone flies I haven't had time to ID yet.

Spikes got to see a blue-banded bee, so her day was made; and we saw possibly the fattest flower spider in the world (in extras).  Amazing place.  And the Rower got some terrific images too.

Then we stopped off at Laratinga for a very brief bird spotting tour, before checking out the new wetlands, and the most delicious lunch at Sazon in Mt. Barker high Street.