Flutterby

I rarely wander from my house unless it is for a reason, buy food, go shopping, internet café, drink beer etc. I have lived in this house for over two years and before that, the house directly across the road for another two years. Four years and I have never walked down the path beside my house to see what was there. That is very sad, but what would have been the point, there was nothing there for me. But I am a blipper now and the rules have changed.

I was flicking through 'my pictures' and found an old Google maps image of my house. I could clearly see a bit of woodland behind the block of houses, with a path too. Knowing how you all love spider pictures, I have been searching for a golden orb web spider, the mother of web builders and a bit of a monster in its own right. Funny, when you are not looking for them, there are hundreds of them everywhere, but since joining blip, I have not found one. This wooded area is the perfect environment for them, so I grabbed my blipping tools and set off to trek the 100 yards to arachnid paradise.

I am so sorry to have to report that not a single eight legged Adonis was found, so disappointing, not even a single snake either for a backup. I did speak to some of the locals, extremely sociable and friendly people here, something that western communities need to re-learn. At each end of the short path were cultivated areas. The owner figured out what I was looking for and invited me to roam his mini plantation of banana trees, papaya trees and other fruit and vegetables that I could not name. Future blips for sure.

No spiders, but a veritable entomologists Aladdin's cave. Butterflies of such stunning beauty, it was a humbling experience. When I was a teenager, I was well into ornithology and wanted to get into butterflies too, but all I could find were cabbage whites within walking distance, so I abandoned that idea. Now here I am, surrounded by such creatures that you would only find in textbooks. Just amazing.

Only one problem, butterflies are shy and have excellent eyesight. This was a lot more difficult than I thought it was going to be. After an hour of creeping around after these plentiful but illusive creatures, I realized that I needed to get a plan together for next time. Respect for all those blipper's who get in close for super detailed butterfly pictures, you have a lot of patience. Luck helps too, but that is only going to get you one or two butterfly blips in a year or more. I needed to get close.

I stood back and observed which plants that the butterflies alighted for future reference. Next time I would bring a stool and wait for the blip to come to me. This was going to take a lot of time and several visits, but I do have time and patience. Having established a plan, I decided to give it a try for an hour and sat down amongst the ants and waited, with my camera up to my face. I'm still itching now.

After about fifteen minutes, this stunner landed right in front of me, I could not believe my luck. This was the only one of this type that I saw in this session and here it is, 18 inches from my lens. I managed to take about thirty shots before it got spooked. The colorful display side was only half the story, the belly side was just as impressive. Seeing that the chances of me getting this close again soon were not that good, I decided to do a composite, as I really felt that I owed it to y'all to show you this impressive creature as completely as possible, so forgive the PS work.

I have no idea what type this butterfly is and was hoping that some of you blipping entomologists would be able to help me out here. I did have a flick through Google pictures, but came up blank.

Dave