Thursday 19 August 2010

Dancing with Butteflies

A self indulgent post really, these two were nicely dancing around on the sea holly, almost in unison as they drank the nectar.

As we come to the end of the season the cooler temperatures cause the Butterflies to be slower, and catching the photos is easier… either that or they've become accustomed to me?










15 comments:

BilboWaggins said...

Lovely images, thank you for sharing.

Surely all blog posts should be self-indulgent? After all, it is your blog and unless you maintain it as a business tool your posts can be whatever you like :}

Carol said...

I love your title Gwirrel! Your photos too are wonderful and I think the butterflies are so engaged in their feeding ... they could not care less about human visitors. They do seem a bit tattered ... you must have a good many birds about still. Thanks for being self indulgent and allowing us to be too! Your dancing post gave me a wide deep smile! ;>))

Meredith said...

Your work is so amazing, Liz. As for self-indulgent, I'd have to disagree -- because I feel like the one who has just been indulged, with treats and beauty and stillness and light. Ah. :)

Third one from the bottom absolutely took my breath away... hope the temps cool off soon here so I can try and get some good butterfly shots, too.

Cheryl said...

Hi Liz....really really beautiful images. The colour of the butterfly goes perfectly with the bloom....adding a wonderful softness to your images.

They do slow down as the cooler weather arrives. I walked Nella today and took her down a very quiet land where the verges are full of wild flowers and grasses. It is incredibly beautiful. I was absolutely amazed to see around 30 blues feeding on the flowers. Did I have my camera, of course not.
Sadly in the next week the farmer will come along and mow the verges.....ugh!!

Laura Bloomsbury said...

A delightful post - enjoyed every shot and the lighting makes the buuterflies seem even daintier

Laura

Kala said...

They are all lovely, but the composition, selective focus and bokeh in the 5th image make that one my favorite.

Liz said...

Hi Bilbo,

Indeed, yes most blogs are self-indulgent, in this case I mentioned it purely because I have already posted a million butterfly photos and by now I’m beginning to think my regular readers really must be well and truly fed up of seeing them! :)

But since they’re so beautiful, they make wonderful focal points to the photos.

Liz said...

Hi Carol,

I’m glad you liked my photos, I try not to be too repetitive, but the butterflies just seem to grab my attention and I can’t help but take photos of them all the time! This year I’ve almost forgotten I even have plants in the garden, as the flutters always seem to take my attention away from them…

Liz said...

Hi Meredith,

I’m glad you’re feeling nicely indulged! It isn’t often I post a sequence of very similar shots, so today I decided to indulge myself and go for it – and managed to indulge my readers too! :)

The temperature has been sitting around the late teens to mid twenties Celsius for a few weeks/month now. Today is heavy cloud and it must’ve rained during the night. It was very hard to get up this morning, I think it was due to the air pressure… Normally I’m an up and straight out of bed person, but today I almost crawled along.

Liz said...

Hi Cheryl,

Thank you very much, I’m glad you enjoyed the photos! Now I just need to have Blues coming to my garden…

We’ve ranted about farmers before… I was certain the government had schemes to get them to keep verges and spaces for wildlife? Is this particular farmer not a part of that? I don’t know the precise technicalities of it though.
It’s so frustrating when people just don’t seem to think about the consequences of their actions… Like when people cut hedges in the middle of the bird breeding season. Not a single thought goes into the birds nesting there. Why they cannot just wait a few weeks is beyond me. It makes almost no difference to them at all.

Last year a neighbour across from us just *had* to cut back some shrubs in their front garden. They couldn’t possibly have done it a few weeks before or a couple of months later (it was early Spring) and I know Sparrows, Blackbirds and Goldfinch all nest in this mass of privet, red currant and other things.
Then suddenly, my Bullfinch disappear!!!

They too must’ve been nesting there, and it’s only now that I finally have them returning again. They visited very briefly over winter with all the snow, but it’s taken over a year for them to become regular visitors once more.

Angry does not even get close to describing how I felt by these people.

Liz said...

Hi Laura,

Thank you very much, I really enjoyed taking the photos too and was very surprised they let me get so close. I had my less powerful macro lens on (50mm for anyone who knows lenses) so was getting really rather close just to get the shots… Probably within 15cm, maybe less.

Liz said...

Hi Kala,

Thanks! I have a tough time deciding which I like… And it was even more difficult when I was going through all the photos to pick which ones were ‘worthy’ of being shown… I could’ve probably posted far more! :)

Tatyana@MySecretGarden said...

These butterflies and your flowers are color-coordinated! Nice!!!

Noel Morata said...

aloha liz,

loved the mood and playfulness, its nice to be able to observe and take these wonderful pics and share them with everyone that will also enjoy them like myself :)

Carolyn Parker said...

Liz-- these are so light, lyrical and lovely-- those words seem to sum up so much of your work. Thanks for your comment at Rose Notets.