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When Silver Turns Green
e6filmuser
Registered Users Posts: 3,378 Major grins
When crossing the mountains from the centre of Corsica to the southwest coast, along the D84, we travelled down a very winding road. Suddenly, we came across this small plateau, with dozens of butterflies feeding on these thistle flowers. They were flying considerable distances between plants and usually moving on after a few seconds. My only chance was to use AF, so out came my 70-300mm.
A lot of a strangely grey to green butterfly were among the population. I just didn't fit with many years of seeing butterflies in Europe. Even after examining the images, It did not fit any illustrations in books. Finally, some text in the description of the Silver-Washed Fritillary Argynnis paphia led me to a conclusion. Apparently, up to 15% of females, in some areas are form valesina with "extensive greenish suffusion". This was the only possibility.
I have made careful comparisons with the RAW file to ensure that the colours are reasonably accurate. The OOF, gravelly background is rather ugly but it is what it is.
EM-1, Olympus ED Digital 4/3 70-300mm at f8 or f10, ISO 400, hand-held. AF used. Very harsh, bright sunlight. All images have been cropped, the last by about 70%.
Many of this species were in a very ragged state so I did not photograph them. The first image is of one with a damaged hind wing but I have no alternative image with this colour intensity.
Harold
A lot of a strangely grey to green butterfly were among the population. I just didn't fit with many years of seeing butterflies in Europe. Even after examining the images, It did not fit any illustrations in books. Finally, some text in the description of the Silver-Washed Fritillary Argynnis paphia led me to a conclusion. Apparently, up to 15% of females, in some areas are form valesina with "extensive greenish suffusion". This was the only possibility.
I have made careful comparisons with the RAW file to ensure that the colours are reasonably accurate. The OOF, gravelly background is rather ugly but it is what it is.
EM-1, Olympus ED Digital 4/3 70-300mm at f8 or f10, ISO 400, hand-held. AF used. Very harsh, bright sunlight. All images have been cropped, the last by about 70%.
Many of this species were in a very ragged state so I did not photograph them. The first image is of one with a damaged hind wing but I have no alternative image with this colour intensity.
Harold
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Comments
Brian v.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lordv/
http://www.lordv.smugmug.com/
Discussion on its identity goes on elsewhere. It may be the Pandora aka Mediterannean Fritillary Pandoriana pandora (often included in Argynnis) and the first image seems to have many characteristics of that species, while, e.g. the large spots on the hind wing are more like those of the Silver-Washed.
Harold