Butterflies

[Tersha]

I’ve lots of pics of butterflies, and I bet lots of others have, it’s that time of year for some of us!

Red Admiral

[Patrick]

Lovely capture the little white edges of it’s form really make it stand out , love the colors in the whole image they work so well.

Nice work 🙂

[Tersha]

Thanks Patrick!

[Dave Watkins]

I know. I’m the last person you expected to see in this throw down. 🙂

Lovely shot Diane. Black-eyed Susan is a great backdrop for any butterfly. Especially one as pretty as this Red Admiral.  So far we’ve had plenty of the smaller butterflies visit but only occasionally do we see larger ones. Posted a shot of a Lorquin’s Admiral about a month ago. One of the few larger ones we’ve seen.

[Dave Watkins]

This is a Mylitta Crescentspot. They’re about 1 1/2 inches wing tip to wing tip.

[Patrick]

Another real beauty Dave , gorgeous image.

[Astaroth]

I like very much the colour combination between the butterfly and the flower. It has a very beautiful wings. Great shot :)!

[Tersha]

Beautiful Dave, composition and colours!

[Anne Hornsby]

Ditto to Astaroth’s comment!

[Beaky]

@pentaxfan Great shot Dave!

[Dave Watkins]

Thanks all for the kind words. Very much appreciated. 🙂

[Dahlia Ambrose]

Awesome image Dave. Love the colours a lot 🙂

[Dave Watkins]

Thanks Dahlia. 🙂

[Astaroth]

Very interesting photography throwdown :)! I have some old shots of butterflies (I’m going to try identify them, but it’s very possible they’re wrong).

(Aricia agestis cramera)

(Argynnis paphia)

(Aricia agestis cramera)

(Colias croceus)

(Maniola jurtina)

And a little gif taken with mobile:

(Pieris brassicae)

[Tobie]

Nice! I love the GIF most!

[Astaroth]

Thanks! It’s very difficult caught the right moment with the mobile slow motion camera :)!

[JasenkaG]

I also love this gif most, it’s really elegant!

[Astaroth]

Thanks :)!

[Tersha]

Great selection Astaroth, some good close-ups!

[Anne Hornsby]

so many fascinating details about their body and hair colors and shapes.   Thanks.

[Patrick]

Fantastic selection mate , nice work.

[Beaky]

@astaroth These are beautiful shots Astaroth

[Dave Watkins]

Terrific series of photos Astaroth. Fun watching that Cabbage White take off. 🙂

[Dahlia Ambrose]

Love these images Astaroth 🙂

[Astaroth]

Thanks to all :)! Your comments are very appreciated :)!

The most of these pictures were made with my old gear (a TAMRON 70-300, 1:2), and cropping the images. My new macro photography gear implies get much closer, and butterflies don’t like it :p.

[Rob Wood (Admin)]

Your bug photography has really been on point lately @astaroth.

[Astaroth]

Thanks :)! I broke my extension tubes recently… so no more bugs for a while :p…

[Tersha]

Peacock butterfly…

[Anne Hornsby]

wow, I’ve never seen this, Diane.  Amazing design, eh?

[Tersha]

Thanks Anne, they are very beautiful, they are one of the butterflies that I see most .

[Patrick]

Lovely capture Tersha , really nice wing marking , i only have 2 shot of the peacock and they are not great .. nice going .

 

 

 

 

[Tersha]

Thanks Patrick, there’s a place nearish to me, where there are a lot. I used to try and get close for a macro shot, but they’re too skittish. So I’ve been using a 300 lens, getting as close as poss with that so that I don’t have to crop too much

[Dahlia Ambrose]

Beautiful colours. Love it Diane 🙂

[Tersha]

Thanks Dahlia!

[Astaroth]

Wow! What a beautiful vivid colours :o! I love it!

[Tersha]

Thanks Astaroth!

[Wendy P]

So pretty!

[Beaky]

Lovely shot @tersha, unfortunately I won’t be posting in this one, haven’t been quick enough catch one sitting still long enough. One day! 🙂

The Peacock is pretty cool too.

[Tersha]

Hi Beaky, have you tried using a long lens to catch one?

@ozride

[Beaky]

No but I will 🙂

[Dave Watkins]

Nice catch Diane. What a beautiful butterfly. Nothing like it in my area.

[Dahlia Ambrose]

Love the contrasting colours Diane. Very beautiful 🙂

[Dave Watkins]

Inspired by Anne Hornsby’s “Last Days of Chow-Down.” Elkton Community Education Center is 60 miles south of us. Carol and I drove down yesterday to see a few Monarch butterflies they have in their Butterfly Pavilion. A woman from Brookings Oregon drove a male and female Monarch to ECEC in Elkton. Let them go in the enclosed pavilion and nature took its course. This is one of their progeny “chowing down” on milkweed. Not a butterfly but will soon be.

 

[Astaroth]

Very beautiful shot :)! I like the sharpness in its… leg?, antenna? The unfocused background fix the attention in the subject. I never know where put the focus exactly in caterpillars, but in this image it’s great.

[Dave Watkins]

Thanks Astaroth. Like with other wild life I try to get the eyes in focus. Or in this case where the eyes would be. 🙂 And unlike shooting more fleet of foot wild life this caterpillar allowed me to change aperture a number of times then pick which one I liked best later.

[Dahlia Ambrose]

Love the colours and details Dave 🙂

[Dave Watkins]

Thank you Dahlia. 🙂

[Anne Hornsby]

@pentaxfan  Great to see its little face and antenna up close, with the leaf edge disapearing rapidly!

[Dave Watkins]

Hi Anne. Hoping to one day see one in our own garden. 🙂

[Tersha]

Great shot Dave, good focus. I’ve not seen one of these before.

[Dave Watkins]

Thanks Diane. Very rare to see here. We drove 60 miles to see some.

[ElinL]

Great idea for a throwdown Diane – all wonderful pictures above. Love the GIF Astaroth.

There are no butterflies here to speak of, but I love taking photos of them when travelling to warmer places. Three years ago we had a wonderful stay at the Asa Wright Nature centre in Trinidad and there was no lack of butterflies there, lots monarchs among them.

[Dave Watkins]

Beautiful shot Elin. Love the contrast and separation between subject and background. Good to hear Monarchs doing well in Trinidad.

[ElinL]

Thank you Dave, appreciated.

[Dahlia Ambrose]

Wow! Brilliant colours Elin. Love it a lot 🙂

[ElinL]

Thank you Dahlia 🙂

[Patrick]

Such a lovely photo , nice going Elin 🙂

[ElinL]

Thanks Patrick 🙂

[Anne Hornsby]

@elax  Fantastic composition, Elin, with the black surround mirroring the black in the monarch wings, and the bokeh in the flowers with the really sharp capture of the butterfly!

[ElinL]

Thank you so much Anne 🙂

[Tersha]

Beautiful shot Elin!

[ElinL]

Thank you Diane.

[Tersha]

Tortoiseshell

[Tersha]

I found this in the garden, one day it’ll turn into a butterfly or moth …

[ElinL]

Beautiful creature – lovely shot !

[Patrick]

Awesome shot 🙂

[Dave Watkins]

A terrific coppery, bronzish colored caterpillar. Love the detail of all the spikey hairs.

[Patrick]

I don’t have many to choose from

Can’t remember the first  , Peacock from above and from the front , Common Blue.

[ElinL]

Beauties all of them, great shots Patrick !

[Patrick]

Thank you Elin 🙂

[Dave Watkins]

Terrific additions Patrick.

[Patrick]

Thank you Dave 🙂

[Tersha]

Nice collection Patrick!

[Patrick]

Thanks very much , i really should go out more 🙂

[Rob Wood (Admin)]

Especially like that bottom right one, @patrickw

[Patrick]

Many thanks Rob

[Ken Scheepers]

A Gulf Fritillary on a Zennia 

[ElinL]

Great image Ken – love the contrasting colours.

[Tersha]

Very nice Ken!

[LeanneC]

Some real different butterflies in this Throwdown. Always interesting to see. I have recently made the acquaintance of a retired entomologist who identified this one for me…a Purplish Copper…this is a female, so colour is orange but males have a purple sheen to them:

[Dave Watkins]

What a great background for this butterfly. Beautiful shot.

[LeanneC]

Thanks Dave. She is enjoying the nectar from the sagebrush flowers that populate our grasslands.

[Tersha]

Great shot Leanne, it looks good on that plant!

[LeanneC]

And some of you may know this story already but my daughter and I have “raised” Mourning Cloaks (Camberwell Beauty in the UK I believe) the past couple of years. This year we got to watch a female laying in our willow tree and observed the progress as the eggs hatched, caterpillars molted and grew, chrysalis were formed and eventually butterflies emerged. Here a few images from the experience:

[Dave Watkins]

So great what you and your daughter are doing with Mourning Cloaks. Thanks for sharing this series of wonderful photos from egg to adult. 🙂

[LeanneC]

Thanks Dave. We perfected the release this year, using a mosquito net to gradually release them. It was like a mini “Butterfly World” where we could observe them before sending them off for good.

 

[Tersha]

Great series Leanne, and great photos!

[ElinL]

Breathtaking series Leanne ! What a gift to be able to successfully raise butterflies like you did.

[LeanneC]

Thanks Elin. We split the group up and I took some into the library at school so the students could observe them. The timing was great as several kids adopted caterpillars just before the chrysalis stage when they are low maintenance. Many got to see the butteries emerge. The best kind of learning. An interesting aside, we left about 50-60 on the tree and observed them. In the end, none survived. Most were eaten by wasps and birds. Some succumbed to the elements. Very low survival rate in the wild.

[Anne Hornsby]

Stunning sequence, Leanne.  Fantastic!

[LeanneC]

Thanks Anne. It was fun.

[Dahlia Ambrose]

Wow! Amazing set of images Leanne. Love how you have documented the entire cycle and I love what you are doing 🙂

[Wendy P]

An amazing sequence. Great work.

[Tersha]

Just catching up with posts that I’ve missed! Love what you’ve done here Leanne!

[David Chesterfield]

 

[David Chesterfield]

 

[David Chesterfield]

[Anne Hornsby]

@dchester1001  Gorgeous, David.   What is unique to this image is what I think is light shining through the wings.   Do you know what creature this is?

 

 

[David Chesterfield]

Thanks Anne @annehorsby – this is an Orchard Swallowtail Butterfly. Common in my backyard.

 

[Tersha]

Great series David, all so different to our butterflies!

[David Chesterfield]

 

[David Chesterfield]

 

[ElinL]

Exquisite series David !

[LeanneC]

Beautiful shots David. Such a variety.

[Dahlia Ambrose]

Love them all David 🙂

[Dave Watkins]

Painted Lady on Tall Verbena. Taken last year.

 

[ElinL]

Beautiful Dave – so sharp and detailed.

[Dave Watkins]

Thank you Elin. Both Carol and I enjoy the butterflies in our garden very much.

[LeanneC]

These are the ones typically sold to schools for classes to raise. Great image.

[Dave Watkins]

That’s not surprising. One of the more common butterflies in our area. Probably everywhere. 🙂 Thanks for the comment.

[Anne Hornsby]

I love this Dave.   The dusty blur of the body and the orange wings vs  bright pink flowers.

[Dave Watkins]

Thanks Anne. 🙂 Sometimes they stick around long enough for me to change apertures to get varying degrees of DOF. Sometimes they fly off after just one or two exposures. But I’m happy with this one and am glad you like it as well. 🙂

[Tersha]

Lovely butterfly and photo Dave!

[Dave Watkins]

Thank you. 🙂

[Rob Eyers]

Raised a few Monarchs last year. Sat for several hours waiting to photograph one emerge. Here’s the sequence of events.

The abdomen holds fluids that are used to inflated the wings.

Any excess fluid is expelled as it begins to dry the wings.

And the final drying time before release.

[ElinL]

Spectacular series Rob ! To witness the perfection in the workings of nature is really humbling.

[Rob Eyers]

Thank you Elin.

[LeanneC]

Love this series Rob. Great job (and patience) capturing that.

[Rob Eyers]

Thanks Leanne.

[Dave Watkins]

Thumbs up Rob. For the work you put in helping the Monarchs and for the time spent capturing this wonderful series to share with us. Monarchs are a species like no other on this planet. If anybody is interested in learning just how incredible the Monarch butterfly is check out this PBS home video in association with NOVA. “The Incredible Journey of the Butterflies.”  Was made in 2008 and their numbers have fallen dramatically since.

I realize that this is first and foremost a photography website and I apologize if I’ve over stepped my bounds with a plug for this butterfly that is in need of help. Thank you.

[Rob Eyers]

Thanks Dave. They seem to be doing better here this year although I may be biased by our neighbor’s release of nearly a 100.

[Dave Watkins]

100. WOW! Big shout out to your neighbor as well. 🙂

[Anne Hornsby]

@reyers   Remarkable Rob!   I see this incredible event of Monarchs emerging from chrysalis every August and September (because we also raise them), but  I don’t know how to photograph it like you did in the 1st 2 images.     How did you get such a symmetrical line of of chrysalis?    And such a glow in the transparent chrysalis after they emerged?   Amazing!

[Rob Eyers]

Hi Anne and thanks.

The first 2 are just layers in PS of the same event. The canvas was expanded and the images were moved into place. I should have done a bit better job of getting the grey’s perfectly matched.

I used a Canon Macro EF 100mm lens and a speed-light in a large soft-box. . The soft-box was 45 degrees to the right and as close as I could get it without it being in the shots. A wireless shutter release was used. Hope that helps.

[Anne Hornsby]

thanks Rob

[Dahlia Ambrose]

Awesome images and love what you do Rob 🙂

[Tersha]

Just catching up on posts that I’ve missed Rob, love what you’ve done here!

[Rob Eyers]

Thanks Diane.

[Rob Wood (Admin)]

Very cool idea, @reyers and a great series of shots.

[Rob Eyers]

Thanks Rob.

[Ken Scheepers]

What a great series and thanks to all for the images. Thanks for starting Tersha!

[Tersha]

Another Red Admiral…

[Dave Watkins]

Fantastic looking butterfly. Beautiful shot Diane.

[Dahlia Ambrose]

Very beautiful Diane 🙂

[Dave Watkins]

And now for something completely different. I came home with only 8 shots of Monarch butterflies from the butterfly pavilion in Elkton the other day. All marginal at best. But I really like this throw down so….. Here’s one hanging upside down on the shade cloth roof of what they call The Flight Room.

 

[Anne Hornsby]

I love this Dave — textures are great!

[Dave Watkins]

I appreciate that Anne. Truthfully I have mixed feelings about it. But I came home with so few shots of Monarchs thought I’d post a couple of what I had. 🙂

[Anne Hornsby]

Seconds before flying out of our Monarch tent, this female posed for a split second.   It’s not a crisp shot, more a view of daily monarch raising;, shot grabbed with cell phone.   This is our 1st release this year of the generation returning to Mexico (hopefully).   It’s a small group this year – hopefully 44 more releases.

 

[Dave Watkins]

44 releases is nothing to sneeze at. Congratulations. Garden in the background looks to be very butterfly friendly. 🙂

[Dahlia Ambrose]

Awesome work Anne. Love what you are doing 🙂

[Dave Watkins]

Common Wood Nymph.

[Dahlia Ambrose]

I love how you have framed this Dave. And the butterfly is beautiful – looks like an eye on the wing 🙂

[Dave Watkins]

Thanks Dahlia. The spot is there on purpose. Birds and other butterfly predators are fooled into attacking the spot instead of the head area.

[Tersha]

Tortoiseshell on a butterfly bush …

[Dave Watkins]

More beautiful colors. Apparently we have two types of Tortoiseshell in our area but I haven’t seen one yet.

[Dave Watkins]

Because of the fires in our area we had no power for three days so haven’t been able to post. Here’s one of the six Monarchs I followed around the Flight Room in Elkton pre fires.

[Dahlia Ambrose]

Beautiful Dave 🙂

[Rob Eyers]

This one and the last one you posted are really good Dave.

[Dave Watkins]

Thanks Dahlia and Rob. 🙂

[Tersha]

Another tortoiseshell

[Dahlia Ambrose]

Gorgeous Diane and the bokeh makes the butterfly stand out 🙂

[Dave Watkins]

A bit of a 3D effect here. Very nice.

[Dave Watkins]

Mylitta Crescentspot. One week after this was taken our air quality jumped into hazardous numbers from the wild fires. Have seen almost no pollinators since. I guess they’re hunkered down waiting for the skies to clear like the rest of us.

[Dahlia Ambrose]

Love this Dave 🙂

[Dave Watkins]

Thanks for your comment. 🙂

[Tersha]

Very nice Dave, lovely butterfly!

[Dave Watkins]

Thanks. 🙂 About the only butterflies around lately.

[Ken Scheepers]

A Monarch visiting a Zinnia on the patio

[Dahlia Ambrose]

This is a brilliant image Ken. Love the light and the dark background 🙂

[Dave Watkins]

That’s a gorgeous photograph of a Swallowtail Ken. Couldn’t ask for a better background.

[Rob Eyers]

This one is a stand out Ken.

[Tersha]

Superb shot Ken, great detail and background!

[Ken Scheepers]

Thanks everyone, shot with my 70-200 mm f/2.8 at 200mm from 3 feet away

[Wendy P]

A yellow swallow-tail visiting the butterfly bushes in our yard.

[Dahlia Ambrose]

That’s beautiful Wendy 🙂

[Tersha]

In the garden, this afternoon…
Comma butterfly

Cabbage white

[Dave Watkins]

Nice work Diane. The Comma’s wings have such a cool shape. I don’t think we have those in my area.

[Tersha]

Thanks Dave, we’ve had lots of tortoiseshell and red admirals feeding on the damaged apple that have fallen from the tree, then as they’ve slowed down the comma appeared. I don’t think I’ve seen one before, so I was really pleased to get a photo of it!

[Dahlia Ambrose]

Love them Diane 🙂

[davidc]

Stealth Flutterbyes.

[Tersha]

Great angle David!

[Dave Watkins]

What Tersha said. 🙂

[Dahlia Ambrose]

Beautiful one David 🙂

[davidc]

A butterflower

[Dahlia Ambrose]

Very nice David 🙂

[Tersha]

Sweet! 🙂

[Dahlia Ambrose]

Common Glider

[Patrick]

Wow cracking shot Dahlia , love the details and colours .nice going 🙂

[Dahlia Ambrose]

Thank you very much Patrick 🙂

[Dave Watkins]

I don’t think we have Gliders in our area. They’re beautiful. Composition and color scheme highlight the butterfly wonderfully.

[Dahlia Ambrose]

Thank you very much Dave. Looks like the gliders are found in temperate zones 🙂

[Author]

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