Jewel in the crown land: catching a glimpse of butterfly under threat on a Queensland roadside

A tiny patch of scrub near Leyburn is home to one of Australia’s most endangered insects, the bulloak jewel. Even here, it is incredibly vulnerable. Photograph: Matthew Head

On the edge of a thin strip of roadside vegetation, a man in the far end of his 80s peers up into the canopy of a bulloak tree.

A minute speck flashes high above him. “Here’s a bulloak jewel! It’s a male, you got it?” he calls out.