NO SUMMER WITHOUT

Female Eastern Tiger Swallowtail

No summer is complete without the appearance of butterflies in the yard. After some much needed rain earlier this week the numbers suddenly went up and it wasn’t difficult to spot quite a few. The master of the show for me is often the Eastern Tiger Swallowtail. The female in the photo above took a little time on each purple cone flower and gave me some good opportunities to point the lens at her. Other than the Giant Swallowtails. Three of them were feeding in the flower bed in front of the house erratically with fast beating wings. A fast shutter speed is key for freezing the action and getting a sharp shot.

I’m not a real macro photographer but still like some storytelling about summer with butterflies or other insects and often try to include a bit of their habitat.

Giant Swallowtails

For the first time I used the Nikon Nikkor Z 100-400 f/4.5-5.6 VR S lens for this kind of shooting. Very little or no cropping is a big benefit for me. The zoom range of the lens allows to go wider quickly if a scene requires it, while 400mm gives you enough distance to stay away and not disturb the insect.

Red Admiral

Giant Swallowtail

All images: Nikon Z6 III, Nikon NIKKOR Z 100-400 mm f/4.5-5.6 VR S

SUMMER AT ITS PEAK

Tiger Swallowtail

It is this short moment during the summer when flowers and butterflies look at their best. Today we had two Giant Swallowtails and two Tiger Swallowtails feeding in our patch of prairie and garden flowers. A light overcast made for a balanced ambient light and just a very subtle hint of flash was used to pronounce the colors of phlox and Tiger Swallowtail.

NATURE CLICKS #434 - TIGER SWALLOWTAILS

Male Tiger Swallowtail, Little Maquoketa River Valley, Iowa

It has been a good year so far with the butterfly population in our woods here on top of the bluffs above the Little Maquoketa River Valley. We see a nice variety and overall numbers are better than during some other years. The stars of the bunch are always the three different species of swallowtails.

Female Tiger Swallowtail, black form

Friday night I saw a male Tiger Swallowtail interacting with another black looking swallowtail. First I thought he was fighting with a Black Swallowtail, a species we see here as well, but after it landed on one off our house plants it became clear that it was a female Tiger Swallowtail. I guess love was in the air. Males are always yellow while the females can be yellow or black. The yellow form is pretty common while black females are found more southwards according to my books. The last time I had one in front of the lens was 2015.

Both photos were made with the long lens at 600 mm (SIGMA 150-600 Sport), because I was actually on the hunt for hummingbirds. Like with my other wildlife photography I prefer to make an environmental portrait. Though I feel it is not so important to count every little hair, the insect still has to be sharp.

NATURE CLICKS #285 - EASTERN TIGER SWALLOWTAIL

Nikon D750, Sigma 150mm / f2.8 APO EX DG HSM, SB 800 speed light

It seems that every year is slightly different from the one before if we look at the numbers of particular butterflies. In 2010, 2011, and 2014 I took many photos of the Tiger Swallowtail, while 2013 I didn’t get a single shot. The same is true for other species, one year we have them in abundance and other years we can hardly find them. This year is another good year for the Tiger Swallowtail. We have seen them quite often, and not just here on our bluffs above the Little Maquoketa River Valley.

It is not easy to make a sharp photo in the heat of the day. The butterflies are very active and change location constantly. The chances for a good shot are higher in the evening, when temperatures come down and the swallowtails spend more time on a particular flower for feeding. This beautiful female Eastern Swallowtail was very cooperative this evening and spent quite some time on our Purple Coneflowers. 

The combination of the NIKON D750 with the SIGMA 150 mm, f/2.8 macro lens is my preferred gear for this kind of photography. It is my first time that I shot a swallowtail butterfly in full frame (FX) and I enjoy the challenge to get physically closer to the subject. No picture will make it into the “keepers” if a crop would be necessary to make it halfway decent. Yes, we can talk about improving our photography all day long, but if we don’t do the most obvious, I think all talk is pointless…