A cracker year for .......

..... butterflies.

I've never seen anything like it. Up on top of the Belair Park ridge today, there were dozens of Common Browns twirling around on the wind - and this Marbled Xenica.

I've never seen one before, although they are said to be common. I'm sorry about the twig cutting across the wing, but as always you can't get a butterfly to pose for you.

Here's the official info:

Also known as:
Common Xenica, or Klug’s Xenica
Abundance in Adelaide area: Common
Flight: Mid Oct – Jan
Wingspan: m 39 mm; f 42 mm
Mature larva length: 28 mm

This butterfly breeds on many native and introduced grasses and is common along the Hills Face and throughout the Hills where grass and trees occur together. Natural gardens and open grassy areas will draw this species further into the suburbs.
As with some of the Skippers and the Common Brown, all you have to do to encourage the Marbled Xenica is leave a strip of un-mown grasses, a couple of metres wide, preferably under light to medium shade. This should be enough to keep a healthy population of all these species in your backyard.

Caterpillar food plants: Native and introduced grasses. The caterpillars eat the leaves.

One of the two Brown butterflies that are seen in dry wooded grasslands, the Marbled Xenica is the smaller butterfly; the other, the Common Brown, being considerably larger. The Marbled Xenica can sometimes be seen in large numbers. In the Adelaide area it is likely to be seen in the foothills and hills, as well as south of the city. It may also sometimes be seen in wilder areas of outer suburban parks and reserves. The male and female butterflies are very similar.
The females are a little paler and larger. The background colour of the upper sides of the butterflies is a yellow to orange-brown, with dark brown irregular markings overlaying this. There are a series of white cantered, black ‘eyespots’ in the top outer angle of the forewing, the apex, and the lower outer angle of the hind wing.

The underside of the forewing is very much like a paler version of the upper side. The underside of the hind wing is quite different. It has a very obscure eyespot and is mottled and patterned in grey-brown, which is an excellent camouflage when settled on bark and grassland strewn with leaf litter under Eucalypts.
The mature caterpillars are green, with darker green and yellow lines running along the body. They feed at night on their grass food plants.