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A Very Territorial Comma
e6filmuser
Registered Users Posts: 3,378 Major grins
I see lots of aerial challenges between butterflies but this went a stage further. I noticed that a Comma butterfly was taking up a position, in the sun, on the saw-off trunks of a Pussy Willow tree. From there, it was chasing away other butterflies which had been flying past. These included Cabbage Whites, Holly Blues and at least one brown species.
I decide to photograph this individual at its sentry post. Commas readily take flight when approached but it is usually, with persistence, possible to get them to fill the frame, even just the head end doing so. This was not to be the case, this individual being on high alert. These images, with the full frame equivalent of a 210mm lens, were as close as I could get.
I fetched a garden stool, which gives me over a foot of extra height when I stand on it, necessary to get level with the top of the tree stump. This put the subject to flight, the first image being of it on the adjacent Hazel tree. With very slow movement, I gradually accumulated a few shots. The tree has five stumps at the same elevation, we me lurking behind two of them and shooting between them. I later walked round and took more from ground level.
As I took the pictures, I was aware of another Comma due much the same thing in the next garden, beyond the hedge. Eventually, that one came into my garden and the two met and spiraled vertically upwards, very close to each other, to at least 50 feet.
The images have had only normal cropping. I have selectively darkened the trunk on the left of the second image.
EM-1, Kiron 105, Aperture Priority, sunlight, f11, hand-held.
Harold
I decide to photograph this individual at its sentry post. Commas readily take flight when approached but it is usually, with persistence, possible to get them to fill the frame, even just the head end doing so. This was not to be the case, this individual being on high alert. These images, with the full frame equivalent of a 210mm lens, were as close as I could get.
I fetched a garden stool, which gives me over a foot of extra height when I stand on it, necessary to get level with the top of the tree stump. This put the subject to flight, the first image being of it on the adjacent Hazel tree. With very slow movement, I gradually accumulated a few shots. The tree has five stumps at the same elevation, we me lurking behind two of them and shooting between them. I later walked round and took more from ground level.
As I took the pictures, I was aware of another Comma due much the same thing in the next garden, beyond the hedge. Eventually, that one came into my garden and the two met and spiraled vertically upwards, very close to each other, to at least 50 feet.
The images have had only normal cropping. I have selectively darkened the trunk on the left of the second image.
EM-1, Kiron 105, Aperture Priority, sunlight, f11, hand-held.
Harold
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