Swallowtail butterfly

Another very difficult day at the grove. Difficult because in thirty minutes I collected a final selection of twelve possible blips: Cuckoo bee feeding, brown hopper, nice shot of a green hopper, the spider featured yesterday in the blipfolio, a blue and a yellow long thin wasps that I have been after for some time, end on shot of a yellow butterfly, potter wasp and a yellow beetle both shot with the rim light and another shot of the black wasp.

This was the first time that I had used the rim light on a subject and the effect was outstanding. It really brought out the detail of the insects compared to the natural light shots, also the color distortion was not noticeable and no correction was necessary. I can definitely recommend a rim light for macro work.

The blipped butterfly was chosen, not because of the quality of the shot, I had many better today, but because this is the first time that I have had an opportunity to capture it. I got three shots in before it left and I never got the opportunity to get in closer. A surprising feature of this specimen was that it was perfect, with no chunks missing from the wings. It normally resides in the trees around the stream, which is just inaccessible. I have seen it fly overhead a few times and drooled about it, but nada. There are other glorious butterflies down there, that I hope to capture one day.

I still cannot find a frog for Beth's competition. This is frustrating and surprising, as usually there are frogs everywhere, especially in the rainy season, which is now well underway. In an attempt to capture a frog shot, I went to the grove at 02:00am this morning, armed with a torch and my rim light, but found nothing moving at all. It was a bit eerie wandering the grove in pitch darkness, with spider webs breaking in my face and leaves tickling my legs. I heard a few rustles but saw nothing. I gave up after ten minutes.

For those of you interested, I have once again loaded all the reject shots into blipfolio for you to choose, titled 2011-11-09.

Update - Atrophaneura aristolochiae - common rose

Dave