Butterflies at Home

For the first time in several years, the butterfly population has exploded at our small butterfly/hummingbird garden.  Actually, I’ve been impressed with the species diversity, too.  So, during the past two afternoons, I grabbed the Canon 5D Mark IV camera with Canon 100-400 mm lens to capture as many species images as possible.  A few were missed, but you can see from the shots below that subject matter was abundant in the little 25′ x 25′ habitat.

All the shots were taken “hand held” with an ISO of 640-800 and f stop of 8-18.  Seldom did I let the shutter speed dip below 350th of a second.

Flowering plants in the garden include mist flower, Turk’s cap, heliotrope and shrimp plant.

Common Mestra on mist flower.
Fiery Skipper nectaring on mist flower.
Unusual top-side view of Gray Hairstreak with wings open.
Gulf Fritillary isolated on Turk’s cap flower.
Large Orange Sulphur nectaring at Turk’s cap flower.
Lyside Sulphur feeding at mist flower blooms.
One of several Monarchs enjoying the mist flowers.
Mournful Duskywing working the mist flowers.
Red Admiral with a brick wall background.
Queen feeding while afternoon light fades.
Sleepy Orange Sulphur shared the flowers with a Queen (left).
Southern Dogface feeding.
Tailed Orange has more “bump” than “tail”.
Theona-Checkerspot has to feed quickly before a much larger Queen moves in.
My favorite shot of the bunch…Tropical Checkered-Skipper.
Varigated Fritillary showed up the second day.
White Peacock sunning on the ground before moving up to feed.
An unidentified moth feeding on mist flowers. The species is much smaller than most butterflies.

There are more butterflies to come when next I share a trip to the National Butterfly Center and Falcon State Park Butterfly gardens.

Larry