Butterflies
We first got interested in butterflies in 2019 during the influx of Painted Ladies as we were seeing them everywhere & they couldn't fail to be noticed. Seeing some on Buddleia bushes in my street I fetched my old DSLR & tried taking some photos. Reasonably pleased with the results I decided to try to find out more about butterflies which led me to take up butterfly photography as a new interest.
Cameras used
I started off using an old Sony A100 DSLR which I already possessed with a 80-210mm zoom lens and also had a Panasonic TZ55 compact camera which I took with me when cycling or running or in any other situation when space was an issue. I used these during 2019 & in 2020 replaced the DSLR lens with a 80-300mm kit lens giving a slightly larger image at the top end. For 2021 season I replaced the compact TZ55 with a Panasonic TZ100 which was a huge leap forward & in fact produced better photos than the DSLR & became my default butterfly camera. Then for the start of the 2022 season I bought a Sony RX10 IV bridge camera with a built in 24-600mm lens and this is now my main camera with the TZ100 as a backup and for when space is an issue. I should point out that I am not a photographer & know next to nothing about the technical aspects of photography. My main aim is to get decent images of butterflies.
Objectives
Our objective once we got hooked on butterflies was to try to see and photograph all the Scottish species of butterfly (34 at the time) not counting the Clouded Yellow which is an occasional summer visitor & was deemed too difficult to plan to see. Unfortunately though, we had only just started when Covid appeared and messed up all our plans. For more info on our butterfly hunt during the Covid years see my mini book Butterflies in the Time of Covid available to read from the main menu on this website.
Website
The aim of this website is currently simply to show some of my photos of the different species of butterfly we have seen mainly in Scotland but also other places we have visited on holiday etc. To begin with this will consist of a single photo per species but hopefully this will be extended to show a male & female where there is a marked difference (sexual dimorphism) and also an upperwing & lowerwing shot. As time goes on other butterfly related info & pages may be added.
Photos are of varying qualities as different (progressively better) cameras have been used and some butterflies have been shot from longer distances than others eg. some Hairstreaks which live and are generally only seen in the tops of trees. It is intended to attempt to upgrade & replace the poorest photos asap.
Hopefully you will enjoy some of the butterflies portrayed within.
Update September 2023
Since this page was originally written in early 2022 we have been on a few butterfly trips abroad - 3 of which have been with the company Naturetrek. The first one was in July 2022 to the Dolomites in Italy followed by Sri Lanka in February 2023 & Croatia in June 2023. We also had a months winter trip to Cyprus in Nov/Dec 2022 where some of the Cyprus photos were added to or updated. Our final trip to date has been a fortnight in Florida which was a package holiday with the objective of trying to find as many butterflies as we could on our own (without any transport)
This all means that there are more sub pages on the site than originally envisaged & as our interest in butterflies has continued (& expanded) more trips may well take place in the future.
We have very much enjoyed going on butterfly trips abroad & have learned a lot from the 3 excellent leaders & their co-leaders with Naturetrek. As far as ID's go most of the ones on these led trips should be correct as have been supplied or confirmed by the experts. The ones we've done ourselves, particularly Florida, from where we've just returned are certainly not so reliable - particularly difficult families/groups, for instance skippers. I would therefore suggest caution when taking on these ID's & am happy to be corrected on any that I've got wrong.
Hopefully this basic website will continue to grow with more butterflies from more places (probably mainly Europe in the future) .
Colin