Emerald Swallowtail

Firstly - thank you!!!  The southern white-faced owl made it to the top spot of Popular today, leaving me wide-eyed, open-mouthed and slightly overwhelmed. I've tried to thank individually all the people who so kindly propelled it there by awarding it hearts, but if I missed you please accept my apologies, and know that I'm truly appreciative. LandscapeArtist blipped the same type of owl last Saturday, and added this rather extraordinary video to her commentary - all you owl lovers might find it interesting.

So, now - butterflies. Tricksy little blighters. As my garden seems to be butterfly-free at the moment and I have butterfly envy from the great shots I keep seeing posted here, I had the bright idea of going to the Stratford Butterfly Farm today, confident that I'd get plenty of photos for Tiny Tuesday. Which I did, but 90% of them were either poorly exposed or out of focus, or most often both. The little devils just won't keep still, you see - they flutter about all over the place. Sigh.

So, I apologise for the amount of movement in the wings of this Emerald Swallowtail (Papilio palinurus). I did actually get some shots that were better-focused than this - but not of this little chap, who wasn't still even for a split second, and who I thought was just so enchanting that I was determined to photograph him. After several minutes of increasingly breathless and sweaty pursuit, and nearly falling over a huge iguana that was wandering about the place, I did manage three or four images in which his body and legs were reasonably sharp - and in the circumstances I'm prepared to call that a successful result! More practice is needed - I will return to the Butterfly Farm another (possibly cooler) day.

Next: Mono Monday.

What can I say? This was the hardest of the five topics to judge. No, really - I'm not trying to flatter you: after four complete passes through the submissions I still had over forty shots on my possibles list, and in the end I gave up trying to whittle the HMs down to five or six - it just couldn't be done. I do need sleep, after all - I'll be doing all this again the day after tomorrow!

My hearts this week, in no particular order, go to:

Pisky29 for Lush lines - mono foliage images aren't that easy to create, but when they work as well as this one they're wonderful.

Miranda1008 for Line of beauty - turning a photograph of a beautiful blonde child into a Hogarthian art lesson that I for one will have no trouble remembering.

petespics for Lucky Guess - I love the way the lines of the wall, the waves and the posts all recede into the fog.

Trisharooni for Lines - Trish doing what she does better than almost anyone I know: seeing the image in the instant, and capturing it.

lydall for Corran fishing boat - the dereliction, the angle and the low-contrast processing work so well together here, producing an image that's hauntingly sad.

My Honourable Mentions this week go (again in no particular order) to:
richardg
Technophobe
rainie
chantler63
WinstonTales
ChrisGroucutt
wall
Hanulli
and, last but by no means least - It's That Man Again - davidc!

Once more, thank you to everyone who contributed - you very nearly broke the judge this week, so give yourselves a pat on the back. Next week your victim host will be irunlykagirl - please treat her gently!

Right. I'm out of here - Mono Monday hat back on the rack, and Wide Angle Wednesday hat on (and it's very  wide - think Quangle Wangle). Tomorrow I would like wide angle photos of architecture please - the tag is WidWed18.

I'm sure you'll all be delighted to see me slip back into well-earned obscurity at the beginning of August!