A lunch high up in the clouds...

  Butterflies are just gorgeous. Who wouldn't want to photograph one? There's lots of species too, and for each season their own. It's not always easy to make an image of one because they are shy, and when you approach they'll fly away. So it's good to be careful when trying to shoot one. Today my whole day was dedicated for photography, so I headed to one of my favorite spots. Lots of wild flowers and insects, and the weather was just perfect, not too hot nor too cold. Walking among the flowers I stumbled across a black-veined white butterfly flying from one flower to another. What a nice subject, a fairly big butterfly sipping nectar from a flower. Just when I started to get my self ready for the shoot, the butterfly suddenly started to shake. A thing I've seen before... a crab spider was faster. Crab spiders are experts in camouflage, they just wait on a flower and change their color accordingly and when a the meal is there they'll hit. Probably the prey won't even understand what hit them. Good for the spider, good for me and bad for the poor butterfly... The spider got a meal, I had something interesting to shoot and... well... poor butterfly.  What really amazes me, is the meal of the the spider. Imagine if you would enjoy a meal from a big (very big) and light plate and you'd have to eat it on the 40th floor outside and in a hard wind. That's exactly what the spider did. The butterfly was large, the wind was blowing and still this white beast was enjoying a lunch. Here's two images, bon apetit...

   

It's slow time

  Have been a bit busy these last too weeks, and even if I've had occasionally time to make a frame or two, it has mostly been cats and dogs, so I decided I'd wait for something else before I'll make a new post. So even if me and everybody else are busy, it's good to know that there still are those who crawl around in a pretty slow pace... snails. For photographers and culinarists as well, it is good that these invertebrates move slow. After the rain, and of course during,  there are plenty of these oozy fellows around, so it's good to watch your step, otherwise you can hear something crack under your feet. It seems that Escargots are not too afraid of hights. This guy in the images below had found hes way to a pretty elevated position, and because of the nice light after a heavy rain, instead of getting butter and garlic, I grabbed my camera and tripod made a couple of portraits of him. Enjoy...

Smelly, but rewarding photo shoot...

  Snakes don't like to be photographed. Everybody who've handled snakes know that these, mostly shy animals tend to escape immediately when they have a chance. This is what happens usually, but then there are those rare occasions when an individual snake seem not to be too bothered about your presence. I encountered this type of a snake this week. Of course when I found it, it first stared at me for a sec and then tried to slither away fast, but this time I was faster. My experience with grass snakes is that they don't bite, even if they could, but instead they release a foul smelling surprise from their butt hole and the bad guy who dared to touch it ends up smelling yucky and escapes shocked. My friend in the image wasn't an exception, and immediately when I started to move it to a more suitable location it tried to sprinkle me with its anal odour. After the smelly shower, which seemed to last awhile, my hands were covered in a slimy brown solution and a very strong aroma. Nice! Pouring its smelly surprise on me, probably made it a bit exhausted and it calmed down a bit. Under my cap, which I placed on the ground, the snake coiled, and I took a small break to wipe my hands in the grass just to make the smell go away, at least most of it. Then we were ready for a photo session. Because my friend was so calm and didn't try to escape, I tried to shoot it from different angles...

             

Sometimes you just end up shooting landscapes

  Last week me and my wife went to a place were I know there is Caspian Whip-snakes. It's almost two years since I photographed a juvenile Whip-snake and now I thought it's time to find an adult one. We found one, but it escaped because I reacted too slowly. I had a new chance today at the same place, but it was too cold and rainy, so no snakes and I ended up shooting landscapes. Here's two images from today, and I really hope I'll shoot my whip-snake this summer.

   

Elephant Hawk-moth

  My field trip today was supposed to be a little further away from home, but due to other more important things I ended up once again on a combined photo / dog walking trip. I was hoping for snakes or at least for a tree frog or two. Didn't find a single. My wife though, made an interesting find, an elephant hawk-moth was hiding among the grass. My first impression was that it's dead, but no. So I gently decided to move it in a little nicer surroundings and make a few frames of it. Here's one...