Posts in Category: butterflies and insects
Neo-tropic Bluet: NBC, TX
The National Butterfly Center (formerly the North American Butterfly Association Butterfly Gardens) south of Mission Texas is, of course, a world-class destination for lepidopterist, but it is also an excellent spot to observe and photograph Odonata…dragonflies and damselflies. According to one of the locals, this is most likely a Neo-tropic Bluet, relatively rare in the Rio Grande Valley, but then, rarities is what the NBC is all about. 
Canon SX50HS. 1800mm equivalent field of view from about 6 feet. f6.5 @ 1/200th @ ISO 800. Program with iContrast and Auto Shadow Fill. –1/3EV exposure compensation. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
Common Buckeye: Merritt Island NWR
I was really hoping to bring home some dragonfly pics from this last trip to Florida. When I was in South Texas in November, there were dragonflies everywhere. I was not seriously looking at dragonflies last January when I was in Florida so I did not know what to expect. I hoped though. I kept my eye out at Merritt Island NWR, and I even got out of the car and walked a section of the dyke roads at Viera Wetlands. I did see a few (maybe 3) dragonflies in flight at a distance, but nothing I could either identify or photograph. 
The Butterflies, however, were very present. They were mostly Florida Whites, by the thousands, but I found a few Skippers, a Peacock, a Gulf Fritillary, and this well worn Common Buckeye as well. (All of the butterflies were well worn…summer butterflies lingering into winter, or migrants from the north.)
Canon SX50HS at 1800mm equivalent field of view (full optical zoom plus 1.5x Digital Tel-converter). f6.5 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 320. Program with iContrast and Auto Shadow Fill. Minus 1/3 EV exposure compensation. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
Peacock and Skipper
The title is accurate, even if it sounds like a another crime show featuring partners with a complicated relationship. Fiery Skipper, one of the most common of the skipper butterflies, and White Peacock, certainly very common in January in Florida. Of course you don’t often see them posed like this in the same frame. 🙂 This is along one of the dyke roads at Viera Wetlands (Rich Grissom Memorial Wetlands) in Viera Florida.
Canon SX50HS. Program with iContrast and Auto Shadow Fill. –1/3EV exposure compensation. 1800mm equivalent field of view (1200mm optical plus 1.5x Digital Tel-converter.) f6.5 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 250. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
Variegated Meadowhawk, Estero Llano Grande TX
The Variegated Meadowhawk is a widely distributed dragonfly across much of North America. It breeds in a wide variety of habitats, and it flies both early in the season and late, so it is very likely that you have seen it somewhere before. According to the books it is a bit shy of people, but where I see them in numbers, they are relatively easy to approach.
This is a tel-macro, taken at full zoom plus 2x Digital Tel-Converter function (2400mm equivalent field of view) from just about the closest focus distance (4.5 feet) on the Canon SX50HS. I especially like the bright weathered wood of the boardwalk contrasted with the water, which is thrown completely black by the bright foreground.
f6.5 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 125. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
Pin-tailed Pondhawk: Estero Llano Grande TX
I suppose one of things that has caught my interest (and held it so far) about dragonflies and damselflies is that suddenly I have a whole lot more to learn…and…a high likelihood of finding something totally new on each outing. It is getting harder and harder for me to get life birds…birds I have never seen before (not because I have seen so many of the possible birds in North America, but just because I have seen most of the common ones :). I can get, however, a life odonata at almost any pond and on just about every trip! What fun.
This is a Pin-tailed Pondhawk from Estero Llano Grande World Birding Center in Weslaco Texas. It was one of several species flying on the November day when I visited. We don’t have Pin-tails in Maine. We have lot of Eastern Pondhawks, and Easterns were flying in Texas with the Pin-tails, but this black furry Pondhawk was a new species for me that day. What fun!
Canon SX50HS. Program with auto iContrast and Shadow Fill. 1800mm equivalent field of view. f6.5 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 400. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
Giant Swallowtail: National Butterfly Center
The National Butterfly Center has one of the best Butterfly Gardens in the nation, but I am coming, the more often I visit, to appreciate the much less managed trails through native vegetation that extend out from the garden proper. On this last trip I managed to capture several bugs there, with one very rare, that had not seen in the gardens. This is a Giant Swallowtail, not an uncommon butterfly in Texas or else ware, but a real treat wherever it is seen. I found it in native vines along the dyke-top trail east of the gardens.
Canon SX50HS. Program with auto iContrast and Shadow Fill. 1800mm equivalent field of view. f6.5 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 320. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
Emperor Butterfly: National Butterfly Center
There are several Emperor Butterflies in the Rio Grande Valley. I believe this is the Tawny Emperor. It was taken at the National Butterfly Center gardens in Mission Texas. I like the way the light is catching in the wings and the revealing half open pose…not to mention those bright yellow tips on the antennae. Tawny Emperors in particular are attracted to rotting fruit, and there are several “feeders” at the National Butterfly Center…hanging baskets full of garbage…and generally covered with butterflies. A study in contrast.
Canon SX50HS. Program with auto iContrast and Shadow Fill. 1800mm equivalent field of view. f6.5 @ 1/500th @ ISO 800. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
Blue-eyed Sailor, National Butterfly Center
You have already seen a few shots from the National Butterfly Center in McAllen Texas. The site was formerly known as the North American Butterfly Association Gardens, and the main attraction is still the well developed plantings and paths just this side of the Rio Grande River, which attract a wide variety of butterflies, dragonflies, and damselflies…both species common to the US side of the river, and quite a few more tropical species that are only found in the US right at the boarder in South Texas. This is the place for Green Malecite, Mexican Blue, Guatemalan Cracker, and any number of exotic skippers.
I happened to be there the same morning as a group of really serious lepidopterist (who had come for the Guatemalan Cracker) and there is nothing like a large group really knowledgeable eyes to pull the butterflies out of the bush. I would have missed many of the best bugs there, if it had not been for the delighted cries of the real butterflyers.
For instance, this is the Blue-eyed Sailor, a common butterfly from Columbia north through Central America and Mexico. It is found in South Texas as a stray from across the river and there are a few records of it as a resident. It is still very rare in the US. Quite a find really. What you see here, depending on the resolution of your monitor or laptop, is likely over life sized. I am certainly thankful for more experienced eyes.
Canon SX50HS. Program with auto iContrast and Shadow Fill. 1800mm equivalent field of view. f6.5 @ 1/250 @ ISO 800. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
It was interesting to see the advantage the long zoom on the Canon SX50HS gave me. I could shoot over the shoulders of photographers attempting to creep close enough for a shot with their macro lenses and get the same image scale, without any risk of scaring the Blue-eyed Sailor off.
Roseate Skimmer, Quinta Mazatlan
Between a week in the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas for the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival and a week in the Rio Grande Valley of New Mexico for the Festival of the Cranes at Bosque del Apache, I have added over 1000 images to weiw.lightshedder.com. So, expect some catch up over the next few weeks as we move through Thanksgiving and into a few weeks in the home and Virginia offices. 🙂
This is a Roseate Skimmer, on of my favorite Dragonflies, from the grounds of Quinta Mazatlan in McAllen Texas. This, like many of the odonata I saw in the Valley, is a very worn bug…possibly a migrant from further north. There are winter texans…I suppose there are winter texan odonata.
Canon SX50HS. Program with auto iContrast and Shadow Fill. 1800mm equivalent field of view. f6.5 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 640. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
Texas Black Saddlebags
Actually this might not be a resident Texas Black-saddlebags. BSBs are long distance migrants and this specimen looks well worn. It could conceivably even be one of the BSBs I saw emerge at my pond in Maine earlier this summer. Wouldn’t that be strange and wonderful.
The BSB is the single most abundant dragonfly I am seeing on this trip to Texas…even Wandering Glider is a distant second. There are BSBs everywhere I have been in the past 5 days, and in large numbers. Impressive.
Canon SX50HS. Program with auto iContrast and Shadow Fill. 1800mm equivalent field of view. f6.5 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 200. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.