We will drop back a few weeks to my trip to the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival. The trouble with November is that I get to go to two of my favorite places for photography…the lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas and Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge in New Mexico…and when you consider that both these trips closely follow a few days in Cape May, New Jersey during fall migration…well, the images just kind of pile up. It is part of my photographic discipline to process as I go. It is a very rare day when I have not selected and edited and uploaded the images I want to keep from that day’s shooting, but then there they are, on Google+ at least, and often on Smugmug as well, waiting for their moment in the sun when I post them publically. Of course only one in ten actually gets posted. In November and on into December (when I generally do not travel), I have to make a conscious effort to go back and pick up the more outstanding images from the previous trips.

This shot is from the National Butterfly Center south of Mission Texas. It is a Giant Sulpher butterfly hanging on Turks Cap. The Turks Cap is a native species in Texas, and goes by many other names…Wax Mallow, Mexican Apple, Bleeding Heart…etc. I like the shot in part because of the tiny beads of moisture on the flower (it was early in the day), and the way the brightly lit flower and bug are set off against the dark background. And, against all odds, it is correctly exposed! The Giant and other Sulphurs are among the hardest butterflies to photograph in the sun as the yellow will often block up completely and all detail will be lost.

Canon SX50HS in Program with -1/3rd EV exposure compensation and iContrast. ISO 250 @ 1/1000th @ f6.5. Processed in Snapseed on the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014.