Of souvenirs and moths

I really want to get stuck into the online course for Maggie's book, but I need to keep sewing souvenirs to sell at the Botanic Gardens - they keep running out!! These are just some of the Christmas decorations I have been doing, and some of the bookmarks, which are always very popular. Glasses cases and the fairy shoes disappear as fast as I get them there also. Nice to know my work is wanted, but I can't keep up!

While I was doing my roster in the visitors centre at the Gardens today we were visited by this gorgeous moth. We thought it was a butterfly at first, but some research showed it is Alcides metauris a very large daytime flying moth. Its wingspan would have been about 3.5 inches.

The colours on its wings are really a lot more colourful than the photo shows, but they didn't show up inside the building.

Then we waw another one flying around just outside - one of their foodsource vines grows nearby. This picture shows the underside, just as spectacular and quite different from the topside.

This is taken showing the top side of the moth on the tree. It was hard to get a proper focus as the very bright daylight was just behind it all the time. We had attracted several other photographers by this time, so there was quite a battery of cameras snapping away.

There is a photographic competition running at the Gardens for a photo to be selected for a postcard, so it will be interesting to see if our moth turns up on any of them. They are a tropical breed and I think this is about as far south as you can expect to see them.

We have at last had a little bit of rain so my catalogues being killed in the garden beds here have been watered from the sky above, rather than depending on the hose! they are in various stages of disintegration and looking pretty disgusting by now.........ah well, no doubt we will find out more before they disappear completely.

Should have some photos to show tomorrow or the next day of what I have been doing, then back to more fairy shoes.