Framedlight

I had an excursion to Fermyn Wood with Jane, whose butterfly friend said that this was the place to see Purple Emperors. This involved driving to the wood which is close to Corby, parking on the side of the road and then walking a mile or so down a forest track to an area known as Lady Wood. I had not realised that it was a longish walk and had brought old dog Hettie along, so the going was slow. Jane who regularly walks 20 miles or so must have found this a tad frustrating. Once there we met up with a number of butterfly maniacs who pointed out the faintest whiff of a Purple Emperor 40 foot up a tree. I only saw it when it took flight. The sun was out for a while in the morning but clouded over into the afternoon, and had it been warmer there may have been more action. Jane suggested a pile of dog pooh might do it as the emperors are very partial to dung and rotting fruit and meat. Hettie did not oblige! However we had fun photographing silver-washed fritillaries and the rare whi...

I have seen lots of butterfly pictures taken recently - and the weather has certainly brought them out. This year I planted some verbena and scabious in the garden, the butterflies and bees love them and often chase each other off a particularly tasty bloom - the bees always win. Imagine me sitting on the grass in the warm sunshine toting my Sigma 400mm macro lens. I bought this last year for the princely sum of £250.00. It is a fairly hefty lens at 1.4kg, but has true internal focussing so that the barrel does not rotate when you focus. It also has a focus limiter switch on it to try to stop it hunting too much. Used at f8 or f11 it is pretty sharp. I think it must have been discontinued around 2006 and it has no vibration reduction. However for the money it is superb as I could never afford the Nikon equivalent. Here are the photographs - there are mainly cabbage whites, a gatekeeper, a peacock butterfly and a silver Y moth. A few bees are sprinkled in for good measure. The cabbag...