BUTTERFLIES AND EARLY BIRDS
Jen Fellows
Photographing butterflies in the summer is a game for early birds. The best time of day to capture them is when they are at roost, at either sunrise or sunset. On this morning, I had set my alarm for an eye-watering 4.30am to head up to my local nature reserve on the South Downs. My aim was to capture a butterfly at roost against the rising sun. I stumbled out of bed, into my clothes, into the car, and off up the Downs. Frustratingly a bank of low cloud meant that there would be no sunrise shots, so since I was up I thought I’d check out an old quarry, now a designated reserve, halfway down the hill.
I stumbled into a dewy wonderland. As the sun rose above the cloud, it sparkled through the droplets covering the field scabious, the wild marjoram, and the roosting butterflies. As I began to take some shots, and the butterflies started to move out of their state of overnight dormancy, I noticed they were using their proboscis, the long tongue they use to drink nectar, to clean the dewdrops from their eyes, legs and antennae. This was the first time I observed dew-covered butterflies performing this morning beauty routine, but I’ve since seen it many times in Common and Chalkhill Blues, as well as Silver Spotted Skippers, Meadow Browns and Marbled Whites. They can also use their palps a bit like windscreen-wipers, although I’m yet to capture it! These details are what I love about macrophotography; the delight of a tiny moment that I would never know about were it not for my beloved 100mm macro lens and a dogged determination to haul myself out of bed at 4.30am!
This article first appeared in PRISMA, Issue 14.