Monarch and Red Admiral Friends
This was the best of a batch of terrible photos but I really wanted to have visual evidence of a Monarch Butterfly and a Red Admiral Butterfly sharing the same space.
I was at the Bason Botanic Gardens today (which is quite gorgeous and bigger than I thought), and saw a Monarch Butterfly being chased by a Red Admiral Butterfly. It went on for some time with the Monarch trying to land on a gum tree and the Red Admiral seemed to be bothering it. Eventually the Monarch seemed to give up and accept their new friend and I saw them move from one part of the tree to the other.
Now for the terrible photo explanation. I had my two camera’s with me. I’d grabbed them on the way out the door knowing that one needed a battery recharge and the other was okay. Now the Canon, despite my owning it for some time now, I still haven’t got the knack of it much to my disappointment. When trying to take a decent photo of the butterflies, I thought I’d give it a go with the flash. Could I work out how to do this? Nope, pressing buttons and twisting dials trying to locate the flash options didn’t work. Well, what it did was switch it to delay mode, so now when I clicked I had to wait 10 seconds before the photo was taken. Brilliant.
By the time I decided to resort to the manual and finally get the perfect shot, my phone rang and I had to leave for the day.
I got home this evening and one of the first things I did was get out that jolly manual and find out how to a) turn off the delay, and b) operate the flash. And how do I do the latter? Well there’s a button clearly labelled all on it’s own near the flash unit. I keep forgetting it’s there!
I must be getting old.
July 4th, 2012 at 8:43 am
Today being July 3rd,2012, I went outside in 90 degree heat to observe and perhaps photograph butterflies feeding on my butterfly bushes. There seems to be at least one territorial monarch in the area every summer who acts extremely territorial, chasing any butterfly from any of our bushes, as though he’s not willing to share any of the yard’s airspace with any other butterfly no matter what the species. In particular he or she seems to be targeting any monarch or red admiral it spots. Why is it so territorial do you suppose?
August 10th, 2012 at 10:19 pm
Thanks for your comment and my apologies for taking so long to respond.
I don’t know a great deal about butterflies to be honest but I would guess they would be territorial towards other species to protect their food source and towards their own species for the same reason and/or to protect their mate(s). Just a guess though. :)