Posts in Category: butterflies and insects
Mourning Cloak Butterfly
Another gift from yesterday’s visit to Emmon’s Preserve (Kennebunkport Land Trust) in search of Trout Lily. Lit in front of me, flew off, and then returned even closer…and then sat with its wings open as long as I stood there. 🙂 Warming up in the thin April sun. OM System OM-1Mkii with M.Zuiko 100-400IS zoom at 800mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom bird modifications. Processed in Photomator.
Maine! Bee in Blazing Star
Common Eastern Bumblebee: Kennebunk Plains, York County, Maine, USA, August 2023 — before Northern Blazing Star season slips completely away, one last shot. Of course the Blazing Star bloom is a magnet to every pollen collecting bug in southern Maine. There were bees of every sort found here, including this common Bumblebee. OM Systems OM-1 with ED 100-400mm zoom at 800mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Pixelmator Pro and Apple Photos. ISO 1250 @ f6.3 @ 1/640th.
Maine! Hummingbird Clearwing Moth
Hummingbird Clearwing Moth: Kennebunk Plains Conservation Area, York County, Maine, USA, August 2023 — Last week when I went out to check for insects in the Northern Blazing Star bloom on the Kennebunk Plains, I found this Hummingbird Clearwing Moth working the Blazing Star…with a Monarch Butterfly right behind it. What are chances? Clearly better than you might think…as here you have it. There are two Clearwing Moths in Southern Maine, the Hummingbird (this one) and the Snowberry (which has a dark stripe down the side) and I have seen them both on the Plains different years. This is, on the other hand, only my 5th life Clearwing, though I only have photos from 3 of the previous…but I do remember each encounter vividly. This one will be the “one with the Monarch” 🙂 OM Systems OM-1 with the ED 100-400mm zoom at 800mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Pixelmator Pro. ISO 200 @ f6.3 @ 1/800th.
Maine: Robber Flies
Robber Flies: Kennebunk Plains Nature Conservancy, York County, Maine, USA, August 2023 — There are 54 species of Robber Flies living in Maine, comprising 20 different Genera…and there are over 1000 species world-wide. I have no idea which of the 54 these two are, but I found lots of individuals and many mating pairs when I visited the Kennebunk Plains last week to photograph the Northern Blazing Start bloom. This is a hand held in-camera focus stack from the OM Systems OM-1 and the ED 100-400mm zoom at 800mm equivalent and about 4 feet. The stack is 8 exposures deep. Being able to do this hand held with an 800mm equivalent lens and from a comfortable working distance is pretty amazing. 🙂 Program mode. Processed in Pixelmator Pro. Nominal exposure ISO 400 @ f6.3 @ 1/1250th.
Maine! Calico Pennants
Calico Pennant: Kennebunk Plains Nature Conservancy, Kennebunk, Maine, USA, August 2023 — There were several Calico Pennant mating wheels at Day Brook Pond on the Kennebunk Plains this week. This one posed against a interesting backdrop. And this is the season when I always try for a shot of a Calico on a Northern Blazing Star bud. Northern Blazing Star is an endangered plant that, along with the Black Racer Snake and the Upland Sandpiper, the Plains are managed for. The flowers are too broad for them to perch on but the buds are likely perches, especially the shorter plants just back from the shore of the pond. OM Systems OM-1 with 100-400mm zoom at 800mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom bird modifications. Processed in Pixelmator Pro. ISO 200 @ f6.3 @ 1/640th.
New Mexico! Western Tiger Swallowtail
Western Tiger Swallowtail: Camino Real Hiking Trail, Santa Fe, New Mexico, July 2023 — There is water flowing in the Santa Fe River, still, after a wet spring in New Mexico, which means an unusual amount of birds and insects along the water course where it flows down through a series of parks on the west side of the city and along the bike and hike trail of Camino Real. True it is more of a creek than a river at that point, but along with quite a few birds, I found a couple of nice fresh Western Tiger Swallowtail butterflies sipping minerals from the wet sands at the edge of the river. They would fly over the water and dip for drink, and them, if I was patient enough, eventually settle on the shore. OM Systems OM-1 at 800mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom bird modifications. Processed in Pixelmator Pro. ISO 200 @ f6.3 @ 1/800th.
Bonus: Snowberry Clearwing Moth
Snowberry Clearwing Moth: Kennebunk, Maine, USA, July 2022 — As I mentioned in yesterday’s Day Poem…when I went out for my eTrike ride the other day I was dumping my “old’ water from my water bottle in the hanging plants out front when I saw this Snowberry Clearwing Moth working the blooms. We have two possible Clearwings here in Southern Maine…the Snowberry and the Hummingbird…and I always have to look them up to refresh my memory after seeing one. Maybe one of those times the differences will stick in my head. (You can google it.) Both look, when working flowers, like tiny hummingbirds. Though references say the Hummingbird Clearwing is the more common of the two, I have definitely seen more Snowberries. Sony Rx10iv at 600mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications and multi-fame noise reduction (definitely not needed in this situation…but the camera was still in that mode when I grabbed it for the Clearwing…and by the time I got it to the correct mode…the moth was gone 🙂 Nominal exposure ISO 200 @ f4 @ 1/500th.
Leaf-cutter Bee
Leaf-cutter Bee: SMMC Kennebunk, Kennebunk, Maine, USA, June 2022 — This is most probably a Leaf-cutter Bee, which I found working the flowers around the drainage ponds at Southern Maine Medical Center in Kennebunk. (Less probably it is a Mason Bee, which apparently looks and acts very much like the Leaf-cutter…but which builds mud nests). Both are solitary bees, great pollinators, but not honey makers. In looking them up this morning I found that there is a whole Leaf and Mason Bee culture out there, with firms that will sell you starter sets to establish the bees in your garden or farm or orchard, to help with pollination, and lots of instructional material on-line about keep them. Who knew. Not I. Sony Rx10iv at 600mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Pixelmator Photo and Apple Photos. (This is a heavy crop, enlarged with Pixelmator’s ML Enlarge tool.) ISO 100 @ f8 @ 1/1250th.
American Lady
American Lady Butterfly: SMMC Kennebunk, Kennebunk, Maine, USA, June 2022 — It seems to me that there are fewer butterflies this summer than last…I have seen only a few Swallowtails, and this is, so far, the only Lady I have seen. Maybe I am just not getting out enough. 🙂 I have to look up how to tell a Painted Lady from an American Lady every year. We have both in Maine, as is true of most of the US. The two large eye-spots on the underside of the wings are the tell for American Lady. Sony Rx10iv at 600mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Pixelmator Photo and Apple Photos. ISO 100 @ f5 @ 1/1000th.
Bougainvillea Butterflies
I flew into Costa Rica a day early, so I could be there when my tour participants arrived. This year we were back at the Hotel Bougainvillea, my favorite place to stay near San Jose…mainly because of its amazing gardens…acres of mature gardens with a huge variety of plants, birds, and butterflies. The rains that filled our first two days of the tour did not start until that evening, so I had a sunny afternoon in the garden to photograph the many butterflies that are attracted to one particular patch of flowers. Here we have the Orange-tip, a Zebra Longwing (Heliconius), Crimson Patch, Julia Longwing, Banded Peacock, and Banner Metalmark…and they were all within a few feet of each other. I literally stood in one spot and photographed all but the Crimson Patch. (Does anyone know why this is not the Orange Patch? I tried to look it up this morning but could find nothing.) Sony Rx10iv at 600mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Polarr and Apple Photos. All but the Crimson Patch at ISO 100, that at ISO 250. All at f4. 1/500th, 1/640, and 1/1000th.