BF psyche in flight

What a splenbliperous day it was yesterday, I woke everyone in the café with a rendition of the Dad dance. The staff pick crown is not an accolade that I was expecting any day soon and I feel honored and moved by the congratulatory comments from you all.

Some of you were surprised that it took so long for the news to filter through to me, well this is because I am only on the internet once per day with using the internet café. Believe me, this news would not have slipped passed me, although I uploaded yesterday's blip before going to notifications.

Oddities week - day 5

It seemed that the blip monster had decided that I should have to work for the crown today, with very little on offer in the oddities category. What little there was ended up on the cutting room floor. I did get a few spider shots, including the cute jumping spider, so today's folio is ALL SPIDERS! Still worth a look though.

I think today's butterfly shot qualifies as an oddity, remember that I kept the definition flexible! This psyche butterfly is extremely hard to photograph, it always lands in difficult shade and usually under a leaf. Even then, its white livery plays havoc with the exposure, always washing out unless you remember to alter the EV to three clicks under. But they seem to spend 99% of their life on the wing, always threatening to land but then moving on.

This specimen was dancing around my feet, so I thought it would be interesting to capture a butterfly in flight. It was bright sunlight and so I did not need to crank the ISO up too far to achieve a good shutter speed. I took one shot and thought to my self, "this is nigh on impossible. I am going to take a hundred blurry, out of focus shots and be tied up processing them for two hours, give it up"! So I reset the camera and didn't take another shot.

Imagine my surprise when the one shot that I took turned out to be a gem! OK, it is heavily cropped as I was shooting from four feet away, but this must qualify for the oddest butterfly shot ever! Not really sure what was happening, I suspect she was flipping over to land on the underside of a leaf. The fore wing with the black spot is actually the top surface and never visible for photography, as the wings are always parked vertical. The rear wing shows the bottom surface, showing just how flexible the butterfly is in flight.

I hope you all enjoy today's oddity offering and once again, many thanks for your support.

Dave