Butterfly Weather!

90 F/32.2 C = Butterfly Weather! Hot weather keeps their flying muscles nicely warmed up. Saw four monarch butterflies at Bluegrass Prairie Park, three of which were feeding.

Was able to capture several butterfly-in-flight photos as conditions were great for doing this. There was a 10 mph SSW wind, causing the monarchs to align facing into the wind. Butterflies were feeding solely on these flowers, with flower groups spaced but close together. When a monarch took to the air it generally flew forward to the flower group immediately in front of it. With predictable orientation and flight path, simply had to orient myself so the focal plane of flower groups was the same, step back for a larger field of view, focus on the butterfly, and wait for the jump to flight. Bicyclists and skateboarders passed by on the path, and probably wondered why I was frozen with camera/lens in position.

The butterfly was perched on the flowers at the right side which were partly in shade, which is why the ISO floated to 1600 (wanted to shoot at ISO 500). On the positive side, the shutter speed of 1/4000 did the trick in freezing motion. The butterfly is the most in-focus object in the photo, which is amazing as this is not usually the case.