Butterfly data at St Martins
It has been almost 2 years since St Martins was first planted out with almost 1000 wildflowers, shrubs and trees. In that time we have been monitoring the critters that have been calling it home including butterflies, of which we have about 450 species of these important native pollinating insects in Australia. These beauties are constantly on our radar because they are doing it particularly tough, declining due to many reasons but mainly habitat clearing, fragmentation and degradation.
When I read about immense clouds of painted ladies that stopped trains in the late 1800s and the decline in species observed over the past few decades in the City of Melbourne area, the intensity of their decline is very clear. We are working hard to not only increase species but numbers as well through not only providing floral resources and host plants for their caterpillars but also managing these plants in the best way possible for the butterflies. We are constantly asking questions of our work in regards to supporting these beauties -
Why do we have one species at a site and not another species?
How are the butterflies using our sites?
What is going well for them?
What do we need more of/less of?
How can we best support species that are close by and not at our sites yet?
How can we support more species into the future?
How can we communicate with locals around what we are doing?
So far, at this site, we have observed 9 butterfly species, all of these observed numerous times. These are:
Common grass blue (Zizina labradus)
Yellow admiral (Vanessa itea)
Painted lady (Vanessa kershawi)
Green grass dart (Ocybadistes walkeri)
Splendid ochre (Trapezites symmomus)
Long tailed pea blue (Lampides boeticus)
Common brown (Heteronympha merope)
Dainty swallowtail (Papilio anactus)
Cabbage white (Pieris rapae) (introduced)
This data may not mean much on its own but when you see that…
19 species have been recorded on inaturalist at nearby Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne (which is almost 100 acres compared to St Martins which is almost 400m2 of vegetation) and
the City of Melbourne’s Our City’s Little Gems study ( https://data.melbourne.vic.gov.au/explore/dataset/butterfly biodiversity-survey-2017/information/ ) recorded 10 species/groups of butterflies across the City of Melbourne over the course of a few months
…it means that 9 species is pretty darn awesome!
In the next 2 years, we are hoping to welcome the meadow argus and saltbush blue (we might have already seen this one but we aren’t sure) and will be keeping an eye out for the caper white and orange palm dart. In the future, when we have mistletoe growing on our trees, we can say hello to the jezabels. The work we do is exceptionally challenging in many ways but with successes like this it is also powerful and very exciting!
You can help support our butterflies by becoming a regular giver!