Small brown butterfly

Thank you all for the very nice comments, very much appreciated. I am having a great time on blip and am well back into the photography thing again, after so many years of dormancy.

I decided to explore this early morning thing again today, arriving at the grove at 06:00, First light is at 05:30. Apparently, the insects are not such early risers and I didn't see much action until around 07:00, probably needing a caffeine fix, which I had forgone and was regretting.

Early morning is great for dew shots and I took a few to pass the time while waiting for the butterflies and dragons to arrive. They turned out quite well but they were never going to make blip with all the insect life available. I selected the best and filed it in the 'didn't quite make it' folder.

I spotted a large brown, the one featured in the video. I moved in close and collected a lot of shots. The cooler air really slows these critters down, no way was she moving. The shot was really good, with dew drops on her wings. But I didn't quite nail it with the wings running out of focus. It would still have made blip, but I am confident that I can have another go at this one in the future.

I captured a blue bottle type fly, drinking dew off a leaf, but that didn't raise my heart rate either, so that too went in the DQMI folder, which is getting quite crowded. Maybe I should make a video of the snaps that didn't quite make it.

I then spotted the small brown. It was already flying, so no dew shots unfortunately. Normally fairly difficult to approach, but again, no problem in the coolness of the early morning. I particularly liked the texture of the wings. There also appears to be a chunk of wing missing, this looks by design on first inspection, but the ragged edge of the far wing tells me that something fancied a butterfly breakfast. I just checked back through the DQMI file and found another snap of this butterfly and the wing was complete, so that issue is resolved.

The biggest drawback of early morning, apart from the lack of blips, was the dew soaking my flip-flops and my feet slipping and sliding all over the place, very uncomfortable. Before the next dew session I will have to modify the footwear and add a layer of toweling, to afford some grip, that should do the trick.

Dave