Fairies in the garden

Sweet Bursaria (Bursaria spinosa) is shrub of the Pittosporaceae family with profuse white flowers. It is my insect-attracting plant of choice at the moment. Above a local grove of Bursaria there was a shimmering of tiny creatures moving so quickly it was difficult to tell what kind of creatures they might be. It was not until one of them settled of a flower that I could see it was a tiny moth – a Fairy Moth (Nemophora sparsella) to be exact (pictured below).

This Fairy Moth is about 10mm long and is distributed along the eastern Australia from Tasmania up to southern Queensland. The forewings are metallic purple in colour with a transverse gold band. The alternative name is Longhorn Fairy Moth because the antennae length in the males is up to 3 times the length of the wings.

So if you see a shimmering in your garden out of the corner of your eye it’s probably a Fairy Moth … or possibly something more magical.