Padfield

[Padfield]

Thanks Trevor. I appreciate your comments.

Keen to try out the new camera on real butterflies, I visited the Papiliorama today. Unusually, there was very little flying - nothing like the number of species I habitually see there. But I'm pleased to report the camera made photographing them incredibly easy. A new era beckons ...



Because it is winter and Minnie has to wait in kennels outside the butterfly house while I go inside, I took her basket and a coat passed down from my sister's dog, Toby, who died last year. They kept her warm - and I think Minnie felt rather smart, even though the coat was a size too big for her ...



Guy

[David M]

..I'm pleased to report the camera made photographing them incredibly easy. A new era beckons ...

I'm eagerly looking forward to it, Guy.

Results look good thus far!

[Padfield]

Me too, David!

It's been unseasonably warm these last few days (well, Saturday was warm, it snowed yesterday and then today was warm again), and if it carries on the winter small tortoiseshells will certainly start flying up here in the mountains and doubtless Queens in the valley, though I might not be able to get to them in time during the working week. I noticed a couple of cowslips flowering today ...

Yesterday, after the snow had melted, I spotted this distant chamois keeping an eye on Minnie and me:



The chamois have moved down from the mountain into the woods and meadows. So have the lynx.

Tonight Lovejoy was visible again. This panoramic shot from my balcony shows where it is now in relation to Orion and Taurus, for anyone who wants to catch a glimpse themselves:



The dashed line is a passing plane.

Photos are still not really any good. This is the best I can do, though the 15-second exposure ruins it by turning the stars into lines:



Guy

[David M]

Have you ever seen a lynx, Guy?

[Padfield]

Have you ever seen a lynx, Guy?

Only the one in the sky ... But I have often seen the remains of their prey (and I have seen a wolf).

This is Minnie checking out a local kill (roe deer) last year:



Guy

[Padfield]

This is the time of year when tiny things can make you very happy. The tiny thing in question today was Sugrīva. He and Trijaṭā were born a few twigs apart on the same sallow. In October last year, Trijaṭā went into hibernation first, then Sugrīva disappeared and I couldn't find him, then Trijaṭā disappeared from her spot, presumed eaten by a tit, and finally, rather later, I found what was either her or Sugrīva poised on a fork. I didn't know which. Now I know for certain it was Trijaṭā, who had moved rather than been eaten, because I have at last spotted Sugrīva.

He was above head height, in the upperside of a fork, and the only way I could point the camera at him was by perching on a wobbly log - from just the wrong distance. In the fading light of a gloomy day it was impossible to get a decent picture but I should be able to do better in good light.

This is the uncropped shot (with flash, of course), showing how tricky it can be to see these little creatures:



This crop just about proves it really is an iris cat lurking in the fork:



Sugrīva was born on 17th August 2014:



He will therefore be 5 months old tomorrow. I doubt he'll be celebrating his birthday, though. He'll be lying low and hoping no one else sees him.

Guy

[Chris Jackson]

5 months survival in the wild is an exploit in itself. Well done for your monitoring Guy.
Chris

[David M]

You really are a world leader at both locating and following PE larvae, Guy. My earnest wish is that you can track one all the way through to emergence from the pupa.

[Padfield]

Thank you, Chris and David. World leader, eh? I think the caterpillars themselves will always be one step ahead, though ...

No possibility of better pictures of Sugrīva today. Like all his brothers, sisters and cousins, he was safely tucked away today under a protective blanket of snow.







Guy

[David M]

Is Minnie the luckiest dog in the world?

Thanks for the images once again, Guy. Your part of the world seems to exist in a belt ranging from extreme austerity to abnormal warmth during winter. I wouldn't be at all surprised if, by midweek, you were posting images of early QOS Fritillaries basking on slopes totally devoid of ice and snow

[Chris Jackson]

That is one stoic dog.
Winter is arriving in the South of France this week also, but not so white I hope.
Chris

[MikeOxon]

There was even a dusting of snow, here in Oxon, this morning but it rapidly melted.

Mike

[Padfield]

Yes, it does seem winter is here now, across much of Europe. A few pictures from now sunny Switzerland:




(little nod to Robert Frost ...)



Brock had passed:


(the packet of paper hankies is about 10.5 cm long)

Most of the purple emperor cats were buried deep beneath snow but Sugrīva was poking out of his wintry bed:



Guy

[Padfield]

Tried again for Lovejoy, after seeing Mike's pictures, and this time took the exposure right down and the ISO right up. Unfortunately, I was shooting through high haze and with clouds racing to cover the sky, so I couldn't experiment as much as I liked. These are the results:





Or, processing in a different way:



The green doesn't really come out at all. Perhaps we'll have another properly clear night before the comet dims.

Guy

[MikeOxon]

I can see the green-ness quite well on the last shot, which looks to be 'processed' along similar lines to my own shots. I expect that the relatively large aperture of my lens (75mm diameter) enhances its ability to show the colours well. You are brave to use ISO3200 on a small-sensor camera; the results show just how far these sensors have developed in the last few years. Unfortunately, it's been overcast here, so I've not had any chance for a further look.

Mike

[kevling]

Guy,

I love your latest photographs of the snowy swiss landscape. Enjoyed watching the downhill skiing at Wengen yesterday and there is nothing better than blue skies and snowcapped mountains. Just steel grey skies in Suffolk for my walk yesterday.
Enjoying the progress of the PE cats too.

Kind Regards Kev

[Padfield]

Thanks Kev. Snow has been a rare commodity this winter in the Alps - I think we used up our precipitation allowance in July and August. So it has been especially nice to see the trees bowing under its weight recently.

In daylight, Mike, ISO 3200 is unusable on my camera. The processing required to remove the noise also removes all the structural detail of the picture. But it turns out that for night sky shots it is possible to remove the grotesque noise and leave the stars. I didn't have much time last night to experiment before clouds stopped play but this shot of the Pleiades, a small crop from a much larger picture, shows that good constellation portraits should be possible:



Guy

[MikeOxon]

It's amazing to see what you can do at ISO3200! I looked out last night and the comet seemed to be fading - not easy to see through binoculars.

You and/or your readers might be interested in the following trick for reducing star trails by means of 'Photoshop Elements' (there may be similar facilities in other image editors):

1. make a duplicate layer of the image using the 'Layers' menu (create a background copy)
2. select 'darken' as the blending mode in the drop down box within the Layers palette
3. from the 'Filters' menu, select 'Other',then 'Offset...'
4. use the 'shift' boxes that appear, to move the duplicate layer relative to the background by a few pixels, so that the trails appear to reduce.
5. flatten the image, using the 'Layers' menu.

Mike

[Padfield]

Thanks Mike. That sounds a clever method - for trails near the equator, at least, which are all in the same direction (and also the longest, so it's most useful).

It was quite bright today and I was able to get natural-light pictures of Trijaṭā:





She looks so vulnerable ...

I still couldn't get anything decent of Sugrīva, because of where he is, but it doesn't matter - he's alive!



I was trying to get a peep into this white admiral hibernaculum, to see if I could see the caterpillar there. The angle is wrong here, but the picture does show the copious silk with which it has secured the leaf:



It almost looks as if it's wrapped up in cling-film.

These hibernacula appear delicate and you'd think the slightest breeze or any passing animal could pull them from the twig, but in fact they're very firmly attached.

In this picture (taken with flash), only the leaf on the right is a hibernaculum, but the silk has held the partner leaf on too:



This was taken on my morning walk - school didn't start too early today:



And this was our lunchtime walk:



Guy

[Padfield]

Quite by coincidence Minnie and I bumped into Pete Eeles in Bern today. She took an immediate shine to him. This is before we'd all had a few beers ...



If anyone is worried about the state of the world today, don't - Pete and I have put it right (with a little help from Minnie).

Guy