Malachite Green

Green Malachite, National Butterfly Center, Mission TX

Green Malachite, National Butterfly Center, Mission TX

For some reason, many of the butterflies at the National Butterfly Garden this year when I visited a week ago were relatively worn specimens. I don’t remember that from previous visits, but I only get there once a year, always in November. The National Butterfly Center gardens are open gardens, not enclosed in any way, so the butterflies you see there are not captive breed…they are wild butterflies and have to make a living in the wild. It shows, by November. The Green Malachite is one of my favorite butterflies. I have only seen it 4 or 5 times, always at the National Butterfly Center, so you can believe that when someone called out from the trail along the top of the berm that one was showing, I hustled right up there. The light was terrible…an overcast day and the butterfly was deep under cover among the plants on the far side of the ditch on the other side of the berm.

These shots were at 2000mm equivalent field of view with the Nikon P900. Hand-held at 1/30th @ ISO 1100 @ f6.5. Processed in Lightroom.

Back-side view.

Back-side view.

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