Spotted Fritillary

These two Spotted Frillary images were taken near Libourne, France in late afternoon and dull light.  They are one of the brightest of the fritillary's and one the most impressive.  They are absent from the UK and northern Europe though fairly common in southern Europe and the Med. 

EXIF Detail: Aperture F/10.  Shutter 1/60s. ISO 400. Exposure 0.0EV. Handheld.

French fritillary's steal the show

This post is a summary of all the fritillary's that we saw over the last couple weeks here in the Dordogne / Bordeaux area of France.  The genus is easily the most common type of butterfly and to put it simply, they are everywhere.  They have dominated every day's sightings.  Glanville and Meadow Fritillary are the commonest.  The image above and below are Glanville's.

The majority of the shots were taken in farmland, near vineyards and virtually all beside the road in the numerous ditches and drains.  The French roads and highways are maintained differently to the UK.  Every road seems to have a drainage ditch which are left to nature.  The ditches are splashes of colourful flowers which in turn supports these stunning butterflies. 

Above:  Glanville Fritillary.  Below: Knapweed Fritillary

Meadow Fritillary above and lower three.

Small Pearl-bordered being shown some unwanted interest from a Silver-washed Fritillary.

Above and below: Spotted Fritillary.

Above and below: Silver-washed Fritillary.

All of the images were handheld.  Taken with the macro 105mm with VR constantly on.  Aperture used was F/10 or greater depending on available light.  Thanks to John Chapple for verifying the ID.  Any ID comments very welcome.

Not long to wait...

I've decided to break away from showing just birds on this photoblog and showcase some of my best images of butterflies. I'm not sure if they quite sit well here...opinions sought as always on this subject, but one can only marvel at their colour and pose. The image above is one of my overall favourites as it catches the Silver-studded Blue peeping through the Trefoil plant.

I took these images last year in Italy, where the early morning light is so intense and brings the best out of the colours. Early butterfly sightings are already on the Cornish forums, so not long to wait before we get another chance to find and photo these insects.

The above image is a Spotted Fritillary and was the commonest butterfly in the local area. Farming practices were fairly basic and as such, had little impact on the environment - there were literally hundreds of fritillaries, most of them posing like the one above.

The Bath White above was taken with the Nikon D3 and 300mm F/2.8 lens on a tripod. The 300mm lens is not a true macro but does have a reasonably close focus of 2.5 metres. With the lens set at F/4 aperture, some low depth of field images with nicely blurred background can be achieved.

The Small Heath shot above is typical of how I try to photo butterflies. It's far from easy, but talking to other wildlife photographers at the CWT photo group, the key is to eliminate background interruptions so that the image "focusses" solely on the insect. Not easy.