Polka dot butterfly

Well, the saga of the mouse rat was fun and it seems fairly popular. Hope no one was unduly distressed by my interference with nature, but having to daily clean up after the rodent, buy extra food and hide it and repair washing machines after it has chewed up all the wires, is too much of an interference of nature with my life, so one of us had to go and I pay rent.

With the bike repaired, I am mobile again and was able to visit the common. Grass cutting operations are proceeding, but I am not unduly concerned about this, as they seem to be leaving the bushes. In fact, the half of the field that they have not touched yet, is now so overgrown that I am no longer comfortable walking through it, being wary of snakes.

Lighting was about perfect today, with a thin veil of high clouds to take the sharp edge off the suns bright rays. The thin clouds also kept the temperature from soaring and I was quite comfortable.

Not a great deal on offer today, I picked up shots of a couple of ladybirds, one of them new, a wasp moth, brown ladybird style beetle, a great hopper shot and a pretty flower. But the highlight was the polka dot male butterfly.

I have mentioned this butterfly before, it is the aggressive butterfly that torments the dragonflies by chasing after them, quite comical to watch. I have been trying to blip this butterfly for two months now, but it is extremely difficult to approach, very skittish. I approached this specimen, sunning itself on the mimosa bush, with great stealth, collecting shots on the way.

After about seven minutes, I had achieved minimum distance and was able to collect most of the views that I wanted. It seems that once you have approached, after a couple of minutes, the butterfly gets comfortable with the intrusion, confident that it is not being attacked. Once this situation was established, I was able to move around the subject for different angles, even stand up and stretch my back, always keeping the camera in the same place.

I collected full top views, various shots as I worked my way to the side view (blipped). I was just moving around for some front shots when something very large and very loud buzzed my ear. My body, overcome with Darwinian instincts, went into manic windmill mode and the shoot was concluded. Such a shame, but I am very happy with the collected images. Not the best of specimens, but still a stunning butterfly.

Dave