Walking group moth

Today we went on our first hike with the Belair National Park Guided Walk group. This was the first guided bush walk of the season in the Park with the season running from now till November.

It took us to parts of the park we had never seen before. Although it was cool and overcast, it was a perfect afternoon for a wonderful walk in the down some different tracks that were certainly not mainstream.

We saw an emu at the same place that I had blipped the pair of emus on April 6th, plus 6 koalas perched high up in the gum tops. The walk lasted for 2 hours and covered about 5 kms through some steep terrain as well as on the flat.

Our guide was an expert in native orchids found in this park (and endemic to Australia) and he was absolutely passionate about them. This was not the time of year to find many orchids but we did see a few. See Paladian's amazing blip.

There were 11 of us today, and in my Blipfolio Misc. (click left) you can see a photo I have added of some of the group setting out through the autumn leaves. Paladian is the one wearing the camera backpack.

The group leader is seen at the front wearing the cap. It was a toss-up today between this group shot and the moth.

There are 22,000 species of moth in Australia and I have neither the time nor the ability to work out which one this is. It simply landed by my feet and there it was.

Worth seeing in LARGE.

Tina has kindly done some research for me on my mystery moth. Here is what she has found:
Taxeotis is an incompletely described genus of mostly similar-looking grey-brown moths. The boundaries between individual species are uncertain, so it can be difficult to assign observed specimens to a given species. T.intextata is a tentative identification here.

So Taxeotis intextata it i! Sounds like a name that none of us will remember tomorrow.
One final piece of interesting information totally unrelated to this moth. Australia's population reached 23 million tonight.