{"id":3808,"date":"2022-03-02T13:49:28","date_gmt":"2022-03-02T02:49:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bencruachan.org\/naturality\/?p=3808"},"modified":"2022-03-02T13:49:28","modified_gmt":"2022-03-02T02:49:28","slug":"along-the-old-road","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.bencruachan.org\/naturality\/2022\/03\/02\/along-the-old-road\/","title":{"rendered":"Along The Old Road."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bencruachan.org\/naturality\/2022\/01\/28\/the-nature-of-the-river\/\">recent post<\/a> detailed the number of Jade Hunter dragonflies observed by the river, but a few days later they had completely disappeared. Then, a month later they were found again during a walk along the disused old road in the reserve, adjacent to the creek that enters the river just upstream from the first sighting. This open area surrounded by vegetation is the type of location favoured by patrolling dragonflies.<\/p>\n<p>The old road.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium\" src=\"http:\/\/bencruachan.org\/naturality\/autumn22\/road.jpg\" width=\"702\" height=\"396\" \/><\/p>\n<p>A mating pair was photographed, wings of both having become tattered during the intervening weeks.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium\" src=\"http:\/\/bencruachan.org\/naturality\/autumn22\/jades1.jpg\" width=\"702\" height=\"872\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium\" src=\"http:\/\/bencruachan.org\/naturality\/autumn22\/jades2.jpg\" width=\"702\" height=\"744\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium\" src=\"http:\/\/bencruachan.org\/naturality\/autumn22\/jades3.jpg\" width=\"702\" height=\"879\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Free flying\u00a0 individuals were numerous, but two more visits seeking photos were unsuccessful, they were extremely wary, and perched individuals\u00a0 took off with the camera still many metres away. Australian Emeralds were much more cooperative.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium\" src=\"http:\/\/bencruachan.org\/naturality\/autumn22\/emerald.jpg\" width=\"702\" height=\"603\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Another surprise was in store however, an interesting small butterfly took off and disappeared for a short time, then returned and perched just a metre away, posing happily for the camera. It was a Splendid Ochre, Trapezites symmomus, also known as the Symmomus Rush-skipper. A favoured larval food plant is Lomandra, and at a planting day over fifteen years ago two Lomandras were put in the ground nearby, and have grown into large clumps. A lesson there on planting to encourage biodiversity.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium\" src=\"http:\/\/bencruachan.org\/naturality\/autumn22\/bfly1.jpg\" width=\"704\" height=\"664\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium\" src=\"http:\/\/bencruachan.org\/naturality\/autumn22\/bfly2.jpg\" width=\"702\" height=\"675\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A recent post detailed the number of Jade Hunter dragonflies observed by the river, but a few days later they had completely disappeared. Then, a month later they were found again during a walk along the disused old road in the reserve, adjacent to the creek that enters the river just upstream from the first &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bencruachan.org\/naturality\/2022\/03\/02\/along-the-old-road\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Along The Old Road.<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_wp_rev_ctl_limit":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-nature"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bencruachan.org\/naturality\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3808","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bencruachan.org\/naturality\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bencruachan.org\/naturality\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bencruachan.org\/naturality\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bencruachan.org\/naturality\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3808"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.bencruachan.org\/naturality\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3808\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3821,"href":"http:\/\/www.bencruachan.org\/naturality\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3808\/revisions\/3821"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bencruachan.org\/naturality\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bencruachan.org\/naturality\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bencruachan.org\/naturality\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}