Common Mime

Today at the grove was full of promise. The sun was out, which is becoming a bit of a rarity with the wet season well under way. The sun meant butterflies and dragons, with more comfortable shutter speeds for good measure.

There were a few green butterflies with pointed, triangular wings, flitting about, but I have yet to see them land, so no photo opportunities yet. The butterfly that I blipped on the 5th was present, I counted four working the area. If I blipped this, it would have to be from an alternate angle, so that is what I worked on in my approach.

Three times this butterfly flew into my camera, attracted by the UV rim light. This rejuvenated an idea that I had even before the rim light, of building a flashing UV decoy. This may be worth doing for an in-flight shot with flash to freeze the action. It may well be interesting to other insects like dragons. It will be kind of a bird table for insects.

Very soon the heavy black clouds appeared, but I managed shots of a large hopper and a yellow bodied cricket, both featured in yesterdays blipfolio. Also a shot of a green collared hopper, a black wasp, white moth and a flying insect that resembled a one inch long mosquito, but the butterfly was an easy winner today.

I only managed to fire off fifty shots before the rains started, I normally collect three times this number. The up side being the lab work went swiftly and I have two some spare time to kill, Maybe start work on the UV decoy design.

Chilasa clytia clytia (Common Mime)

Dave