striped albatros butterfly

Only a short session today as rain stopped play. I didn't cover half the planned ground, but the cloud cover was fairly heavy and low, so I decided to call it a day rather than tough it out. It turned out to be a good decision, as by the time I arrived home, I was so wet, you'd think I had swam home. But at least the camera was kept dry, it is now spending a few hours in my heated drying box, to remove any moisture. I do the box thing about once a week, to help prevent mold on the optics. Whether it works or not I don't know but my optics are still clear.

I am starting to think that the pickings at the common are getting a bit slim, in that it is difficult to find anything new to blip, so it may be time to find a new location. Still, I picked up some great images from my fifty shots, the six finalists all worthy of a blip. The final selection was a bug, two polka dots and a sulfur butterflies, a St Andrews spider wrapping a ladybird (sad) and the blipped yellow stripe butterfly.

I chose this blip because it is one of the best shots of this butterfly that I have managed so far. It is a fairly common butterfly, but quite difficult to approach. For this shot, I slithered up behind a clump of long grass and managed to poke the camera through a small gap. This butterfly has been blipped by me before, 6th November, which was one of my personal favorite blips since I started.

I saw a guy creeping around, pretty much the same as me, at first I thought he was taking the Mick. I approached him and asked what he was after. He showed me a plastic bag with half a dozen crickets and a small lizard. He kept going on about a buru buru, which I am hoping does not mean snake.

Dave