This time of the year finding birds gets a bit harder as the summer heat and doldrums set in so while I am looking for birds to photograph I also look for other creatures to take images of including the many butterflies, dragonflies and other insects I find to aim my lens towards. Everything in nature is connected and I feel that I should take the time to photograph whatever I see while I am looking for feathered subjects.
Female Great Spangled Fritillary nectaring on Musk Thistle – Nikon D500, f7.1, 1/1000, ISO 500, Nikkor 500mm VR with 1.4x TC, natural light
Last week while I was up in a canyon in the Wasatch Mountains I spotted a female Great Spangled Fritillary butterfly nectaring on a Musk Thistle so I felt I had to take photos of her as she sipped the nectar of the flower. I’ve been taking a lot of photos lately with birds and butterflies on Musk Thistles. Even though these thistles are introduced and invasive plenty of birds, butterflies and other insects have learned that these thistles are beneficial in sustaining their lives. Bees use the pollen, butterflies sip their nectar and some of the birds not only eat the seeds but use the thistle down to line their nests.
I saw lots of fritillary butterflies up in the canyon but this female was the only one that I photographed, she was close and cooperative.
Great Spangled Fritillary female on a Musk Thistle – Nikon D500, f9, 1/800, ISO 500, Nikkor 500mm VR with 1.4x TC, natural light
She was actually so close that at f9 I still didn’t have enough depth of field to get all of her wings completely in focus. After this photo was taken I attempted to take a short video clip of her and by the time I stopped recording and was switching back to taking still photos she flew off. Maybe I will have another opportunity with this butterfly species before summer’s end, I hope so!
Life is good.
Mia
Click here to see more of my flower, shrub and tree photos. Click here to see my insect and spider galleries.
Love to learn about the environment, especially butterflies and blooming things too. Nice work.
Extraordinary. Beautiful shots. Thanks Mia.
Simply beautiful
Those darned thistles are so pretty but so hard to control…once you have them lots of luck getting rid of them…complicated by how so many birds like their seeds and down. Beautiful shot, pretty colors, beautiful butterfly…
Hi sweetie! Beautiful Photo’s love mom
Oooh. And ahhh. And Thank you.
She has such exquisite markings! Yesterday must have been some sort of dragonfly reunion at the shelter because they were all over, even coming into the gazebo while I was drying off a dog. I thought of you and wished I had a camera.
beautiful photos, Mia
How do you identify this as female?
I used https://www.butterfliesandmoths.org to ID this Great Spangled Butterfly, one of the pages that shows a female is this one https://www.butterfliesandmoths.org/sighting_details/1129233, there are others that show the females too.
I learned (yesterday) that the females have slender antenna and the males feathery ones. A quick and easy thing to focus on.
Beautiful butterfly. I don’t think we have either the butterfly or the Musk Thistle in southern Ontario.