Garden Butterfly
During our visit to the South Coast Botanic Gardens today, this little butterfly perched near the dahlia exhibit. We don’t go to the gardens only for the flowers; we love to see the hummingbirds, butterflies, dragon flies and whatever else happens to come our way.
Click the image for the 1024×768 pixel version.
Norm said,
September 7, 2008 @ 09:36:06
Here’s some hummers in my back yard http://www.kodakgallery.com/Slideshow.jsp?UV=308813480247_204928280211&mode=fromsite&collid=256230257111.114107960211.1220805186210&conn_speed=1
and click “Start” for the slide show.
Re: “perched near the dahlia exhibit.” If I’m not mistaken those are lantana leaves and flowers…set me straight.
Norm said,
September 7, 2008 @ 09:37:19
whoops, That should be “Click on “Play”
Damsel said,
September 7, 2008 @ 16:08:37
YES! You’re right but they are right next to the Dahlias. Are those your hummers? I really enjoyed the pix. What camera did you use and what did you use for the food? We’ve got a couple humming birds but the we’ve never gotten that close to them.
Norm said,
September 7, 2008 @ 21:03:49
Camera is a Kodak DX 7590 with 10X optical zoom. The food is a simple sugar-water solution (no food coloring!) that is carefully mesaured out by my wife Debbie…think she looked it up on line.
What appears to be a dark grayish sandy substance in the feeder is simply a distorted reflection of the back fence. Some of my shots were taken with the “28 inches or less” setting. I can get quite close to these humming birds. I achieved that by several ways. One way is to have a little patience when you take out the feeder and instead of hanging it right away, just hold it and they will come. Anoter way (and I almost got a shot of this) is to hold a branch suitable for them to land on at arms length…sort of a semi-camoflage.
With the other hand snap some pictures. I think some of those pictures may have the leaves showing in the forground from the branch I’m holding…had one hummer perch on my hand held branch but by the time I got the camera focused it flew off…they’re very fast.
ps: My wife is adament about cleaning the feeder each time she changes it…to prevent mold we use a chlorox solution and rinse very well.
Damsel said,
September 8, 2008 @ 09:25:01
All good info! Thanks I think Ill try some of your technigues.