Butterfly Bonanza

27 Aug

The heat wave this summer seems to have been good for the butterflies as I’ve seen some decent numbers at my local spots. Reassuring given the butterfly emergency that was announced by the Butterfly Conservation, given the dramatic decline in numbers over the years.

Even during short walks around my local woodland I was often able to see up to 15 butterfly species, including white-letter hairstreak and even a couple of purple emperors, up high in the sallows.

There have been good numbers of silver-washed fritillary and they seem to be extending their reach in my local spot, compared to a few years ago. I saw plenty of egg laying in the woodland glades as well as a valezina form female. I have seen a few of these in the past here but this was the first for a few years. I even had a silver-washed visit the garden briefly which has never happened before.

**Silver-Washed Fritillary (Valezina form)**

My default mission when photographing butterflies is normally to get as close as possible and attempt to capture a head on portrait, as it’s a more unconventional way of viewing them. As I was photographing during the day, in hot temperatures, the butterflies were far too active for me to get that close to them so I was happy to settle for the more standard shots and compositions. I was still able to get some focus stacks here and there, whenever an individual allowed me to get close enough, otherwise I was using the telephoto lens. I also enjoyed using the macro lens without flash for a change. It’s easy to get complacent when using flash, ruling out natural light, believing that nothing can be as good as the soft even light from a well diffused flash. The hassle of taking the diffuser off and reinstalling it again is another reason why it’s often just kept on. In reality, photographing butterflies with a flash isn’t necessary. They aren’t reflective like beetles so you aren’t going to have to contend with specular highlights, even in harsh sunlight. With no flash falloff, the background plays a larger role in the composition. Obviously isolating the subject with the use of a darker background is a perfectly legitimate creative decision to make. In this scenario however, I was happy to let the vibrancy of the background in to match the vibrancy of the butterflies.

Taking part in this year's Big Butterfly Count, I concentrated my efforts on Middlewick Ranges. Despite the sun going in during both my visits there, resulting in predominantly overcast surveys, there were still a good number of butterflies around. I did eight counts spread throughout the site and it came as no surprise when the gatekeeper came out on top. One surprise, however, was the distinct lack of skippers. They seem to have a bad year there for some reason.

A breakdown of all the species I saw and numbers can be seen in this image I made for social media.