www.ukbutterflies.co.uk

Martin.

Excellent shots, V6GTO! Great. Keep up good work.

In my local woods, in late summer freshly emerged males and females spend ages feeding up on Teasle Flower Heads in order to build up food reserves for the long winter hibernation. Then they are a doddle to photograph.

However, they have an annoying trait: I have never seen a feeding or resting Brimstone with it's wings open .... ever in over 60 years of observations.

Brimstone open!

Thats a really awsome shot. Never really seen that happen. How'd you get that? I am really jelous

A fluke really! It was trapped in my greenhouse. I was trying to get any photo from inside when I noticed it was 'wedged' open winged in a corner, no vertical room to close its wings. So I rushed outside and took it through the glass! Before it had another fluttering session looking for a way out.

I suppose I should try to do a lot of work on it to remove the most obvious signs of being behind a dirty bit of glass. isolate the butterfly and put it on a more 'natural' background.

Yeah, put a tree branch behind it, like it was sitting on a tree, sunnin itself. Could teel from pic it was inside somewhere. Before I knew how (this year) I got many pics from butterflies or moths that happened to fly in my open bedroom window. Not a great practise, but you can make it look real, like taken outside "natural" but personally I would not do it. Go ahead with brinstone and see what you get.

My most interesting Brimstone shot was when I was observing a courting pair. After snapping the female wings open on a fence wire it dived into the grass. I put my hand nearby and the male landed on me twice! That was a surprise...

Tatty courting female:
http://piccies.flybywire.org.uk/Butterf ... tones1.jpg
http://piccies.flybywire.org.uk/Butterf ... tones2.jpg

The male on my hand:
http://piccies.flybywire.org.uk/Butterf ... mstone.jpg

About your hand, was the moon nearly full at that time?

lol!

Yeah closeups of skin always make it look strange, even if the hair is fairly thin. Hairs always look dramatic when closeup.

I'm guessing you are follically challenged then?

Atleast last year's Heath Fritillary chose my finger...
http://piccies.flybywire.org.uk/Butterf ... llary5.jpg

As did this year's Dingy's. And a Red Admiral and a Comma in the past chose my jeans.

-Mike[/img]

I'm guessing you are follically challenged then?

Afraid so. Thin on top and a beard area that would be like Catweazle if I didn't shave it off.