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I spent the day on Sunday at the Wine Country Optics and Birding Fair at Cornerstone in Sonoma California. Cornerstone is Wine Country Visitor Center, in-door and out-door sculpture gallery, wine tasting venue for 4 vineyards, and collection of demonstration gardens from the area’s best know landscape gardeners and designers. It is a popular wedding destination, but on one Sunday of the year the extensive grounds are given over to the pop-up tents and tables of birding and conservation organizations and birding optics makers. I was, of course, there for ZEISS.

In the afternoon, when the sun and the air got hot, the crowds dwindled and I had a chance to wander the grounds. I sent 30 minutes chasing butterflies in a row of purple flowered shrubs. There were lots of skippers, several Monarchs, and this one lone, very worn, Western Swallowtail. The color contrast in this image is almost more than the eye can tolerate :). And the butterfly is so worn I am amazed it was still flying.

Sony HX400V at 1200mm equivalent field of view. ISO 100 @ 1/1250th @ f6.3. Program with -1/3 EV exposure compensation. Processed in Lightroom on my Surface Pro 3 tablet.