Tag: Butterfly

Tuesday (09-July-2019) — New Jersey

Summertime Backyard Nature in New Jersey.

While it was still cool out in the morning, I mowed the yard. It had been over a week and I needed to catch up. I had my Nikon 1 V3 camera with the 70-300 mm lens with me “just in case”. Sure enough when I passed the back wildflower section I noticed a Tiger Swallowtail butterfly. It found the dwarf Zinnia flowers that had just started blooming. This section was not seeded until several weeks after the sections next to the house where the wildflowers are now waist to shoulder high. After I finished mowing I came across a Painted Lady butterfly in the wildflowers near the house. Then to make my day, I saw a Monarch butterfly. I was cooking dinner and looked out the kitchen window and saw it fly by. Normally, I don’t see the Monarch butterflies until late August and September. So I ran out with the camera and got some pictures. I didn’t care that dinner burned while I was outside…

Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly on a Zinnia Flower. Image taken with a Nikon 1 V3 camera and 70-300 mm VR lens. (DAVID J MATHRE)
Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly on a Zinnia Flower. Image taken with a Nikon 1 V3 camera and 70-300 mm VR lens. (DAVID J MATHRE)
Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly on a Zinnia Flower. Image taken with a Nikon 1 V3 camera and 70-300 mm VR lens. (DAVID J MATHRE)
Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly on a Zinnia Flower. Image taken with a Nikon 1 V3 camera and 70-300 mm VR lens. (DAVID J MATHRE)
Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly on a Zinnia Flower. Image taken with a Nikon 1 V3 camera and 70-300 mm VR lens. (DAVID J MATHRE)
Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly on a Zinnia Flower. Image taken with a Nikon 1 V3 camera and 70-300 mm VR lens. (DAVID J MATHRE)
Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly on a Cosmos Flower. Image taken with a Nikon 1 V3 camera and 70-300 mm VR lens. (DAVID J MATHRE)
Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly on a Cosmos Flower. Image taken with a Nikon 1 V3 camera and 70-300 mm VR lens. (DAVID J MATHRE)
Painted Lady Butterfly on a Coneflower Flower. Image taken with a Nikon 1 V3 camera and 70-300 mm VR lens. (DAVID J MATHRE)
Painted Lady Butterfly on a Coneflower Flower. Image taken with a Nikon 1 V3 camera and 70-300 mm VR lens. (DAVID J MATHRE)
Painted Lady Butterfly on a Coreopsis Flower. Image taken with a Nikon 1 V3 camera and 70-300 mm VR lens. (DAVID J MATHRE)
Painted Lady Butterfly on a Coreopsis Flower. Image taken with a Nikon 1 V3 camera and 70-300 mm VR lens. (DAVID J MATHRE)
Painted Lady Butterfly on a Coneflower Flower. Image taken with a Nikon 1 V3 camera and 70-300 mm VR lens. (DAVID J MATHRE)
Painted Lady Butterfly on a Coneflower Flower. Image taken with a Nikon 1 V3 camera and 70-300 mm VR lens. (DAVID J MATHRE)
Monarch Butterfly on a Coreopsis Flower. Image taken with a Nikon 1 V3 camera and 70-300 mm VR lens. (DAVID J MATHRE)
Monarch Butterfly on a Coreopsis Flower. Image taken with a Nikon 1 V3 camera and 70-300 mm VR lens. (DAVID J MATHRE)
Monarch Butterfly on a Coreopsis Flower. Image taken with a Nikon 1 V3 camera and 70-300 mm VR lens. (DAVID J MATHRE)
Monarch Butterfly on a Coreopsis Flower. Image taken with a Nikon 1 V3 camera and 70-300 mm VR lens. (DAVID J MATHRE)
Monarch Butterfly on a Coreopsis Flower. Image taken with a Nikon 1 V3 camera and 70-300 mm VR lens. (DAVID J MATHRE)
Monarch Butterfly on a Coreopsis Flower. Image taken with a Nikon 1 V3 camera and 70-300 mm VR lens. (DAVID J MATHRE)
Monarch Butterfly on a Coreopsis Flower. Image taken with a Nikon 1 V3 camera and 70-300 mm VR lens. (DAVID J MATHRE)
Monarch Butterfly on a Coreopsis Flower. Image taken with a Nikon 1 V3 camera and 70-300 mm VR lens. (DAVID J MATHRE)
Monarch Butterfly on a Sunflower. Image taken with a Nikon 1 V3 camera and 70-300 mm VR lens. (DAVID J MATHRE)
Monarch Butterfly on a Sunflower. Image taken with a Nikon 1 V3 camera and 70-300 mm VR lens. (DAVID J MATHRE)

Daily Power Use (58.9 kWh) from Sense and Solar Production (79.1 kWh) from SolSystems and Locus Energy. Much more sun today, so the solar panels generated more power that I used.

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Five-Years Ago (11-February-2014) — Florida

Gone to See America 2014 Road Trip. Day 11: Big Cypress Swamp National Preserve.

Pair of Queen Butterflies on a wildflower along the Loop Road. Image taken with a Nikon D3x camera and 70-200 mm f/2.8 lens (ISO 200, 200 mm, f/5.6, 1/400 sec).

Pair of Queen Butterflies on a Wildflower. Big Cypress Swamp National Preserve in Florida. Image taken with a Nikon D3x camera and 70-200 mm f/2.8 lens (ISO 200, 200 mm, f/5.6, 1/400 sec). (David J Mathre)
Pair of Queen Butterflies on a Wildflower. Big Cypress Swamp National Preserve in Florida. Image taken with a Nikon D3x camera and 70-200 mm f/2.8 lens (ISO 200, 200 mm, f/5.6, 1/400 sec). (David J Mathre)

Eleven-Years Ago (08-October-2007) — New Jersey

Autumn Nature in New Jersey.

Monarch Butterfly. Eleven-years ago while driving home from work I saw purple wild flowers on the side of the road at an abandoned golf course in Hillsborough. I pulled over to see if there was a picture. The purple wildflowers attracted dozens of Monarch butterflies providing more colors.  I took this image with my favorite 80-400 mm telephoto zoom lens. The hard part was working at the minimum focus distance for the lens (~ 7 feet). I needed to keep stepping back to get the image in focus. One more reason I always have a camera with me.

Every year after that I would check the place at the same time of the year, but never saw as many wildflowers or Monarch Butterflies. The last several years the place became a construction site for a highway bypass and interchange. Now that the construction is complete and the bypass open, it looks like wildflowers may come back. We will see if the Monarch Butterflies come back in the future.

Monarch Butterfly. Late Fall Nature in Central New Jersey. Image taken with a Nikon D2xs and 80-400 mm VR lens (ISO 100, 400 mm, f/5.6, 1/250 sec). (David J Mathre)
Monarch Butterfly. Late Fall Nature in Central New Jersey. Image taken with a Nikon D2xs and 80-400 mm VR lens (ISO 100, 400 mm, f/5.6, 1/250 sec). (David J Mathre)


Individual images in the slideshow can be viewed here.

Sunday (30-September-2018) — New Jersey

Backyard Autumn Nature in New Jersey.

Now that the sun is back out, I noticed a Monarch Butterfly feeding on my small Zinnia flowers. It needs to leave for Mexico pretty soon, as it is starting to get cool at night. I had to use the jpg image, because neither Adobe or Capture One recognize the raw files from the Fuji X-T3 camera.

Update: The latest update to Capture One (11.3) does recognize the raw file. The pink flower is not overblown when Capture One was used to reprocess the image. Also, when I reviewed my image database I found images of Monarch Butterflies from late October last year.

Monarch Butterfly on a Pink Zinnia Flower. Image taken with a Fuji X-T3 camera and 100-400 mm OIS telephoto zoom lens (ISO 200, 400 mm, f/5.6, 1/500 sec). (David J Mathre)
Monarch Butterfly on a Pink Zinnia Flower. Image taken with a Fuji X-T3 camera and 100-400 mm OIS telephoto zoom lens (ISO 200, 400 mm, f/5.6, 1/500 sec). JPG image processed with Capture One Pro. (David J Mathre)
Monarch Butterfly on a Pink Zinnia Flower. Image taken with a Fuji X-T3 camera and 100-400 mm OIS telephoto zoom lens (ISO 200, 400 mm, f/5.6, 1/500 sec). Raw image processed with Capture One Pro. (David J Mathre)
Monarch Butterfly on a Pink Zinnia Flower. Image taken with a Fuji X-T3 camera and 100-400 mm OIS telephoto zoom lens (ISO 200, 400 mm, f/5.6, 1/500 sec). Raw image processed with Capture One Pro. (David J Mathre)

Five-Years Ago (12-August-2013) — New Jersey

Summertime Nature in New Jersey. Sourland Mountain Preserve

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly on a Joe Pye Weed Bloom at the Sourland Mountain Preserve. Image taken with a Nikon D800 camera and 500 mm f/4 VR lens (ISO 250, 500 mm, f/5, 1/600 sec). Lens mounted on a monopod.

I’ve visited the Sourland Mountain Preserve several times after returning from Iceland. There are a couple of patches of Joe Pye weeds that the Yellow (Tiger) Swallowtail and Black Swallowtail butterflies are attracted. I did see one Clearwing Hummingbird Butterfly, but wasn’t quick enough to get a picture. I only saw one thistle in bloom. Didn’t see any Praying Mantis (butterfly predators). Also, only one Monarch Butterfly.

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly on a Joe Pye Weed Bloom at the Sourland Mountain Preserve in New Jersey. Image taken with a Nikon D800 camera and 500 mm f/4 VR lens (ISO 250, 500 mm, f/5, 1/600 sec). Lens mounted on a monopod. (David J Mathre)
Eastern Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly on a Joe Pye Weed Bloom at the Sourland Mountain Preserve in New Jersey. Image taken with a Nikon D800 camera and 500 mm f/4 VR lens (ISO 250, 500 mm, f/5, 1/600 sec). Lens mounted on a monopod. (David J Mathre)