Over 150 mls of rain over the last few days, in August too which is unusual. Rain this constant is the norm from January on. Later than May is highly at odds with regular readings in the rain gauge. Also a lone monarch butterfly sitting on a mustard flower which I have never seen this late in the last days of winter.
It is thought the monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus ) first appeared in Queensland in the 1870s. Speculation then was it had migrated from Brazil under their own wing power but it is now thought it was imported with the Wild Cotton, an introduced plant, which had been dispersed far and wide by 1856. Wild Cotton (Gomphocarpus fruticocus ) is another plant targeted by herbicides in the Byron Shire. The Monarch pupates on the Wild Cotton. I remind readers us Europeans were imported too.
