DRAGONFLIES 
&
BUTTERFLIES

Blue-Eyed Darner 

Yep, this is the same one as on my home page. Probably the most amazing photo I have ever taken and undisputedly the luckiest. I was at the Van Dusen Botanical Garden, a lovely converted 18 hole golf course, right outside the city proper of Vancouver Canada. There is a water lily pond, well it is bigger than that, but there were lots of lilies in it. Had a nice fountain out in it and made for several artistic opportunities from different places around it. I was walking north along a path that followed along the west bank and had just got a couple of shots of a Mallard sitting out on a rock amidst the water lilies with a reflection. So I continued along the path looking for the next photo op, and I saw this dragonfly flying directly toward me, but about 6-10 feet to my right and just right out over the edge of the  pond. The bank drops down about 5-8 feet. I had a Nikon D1X with that economical 70-300 AF lens that you can buy for about $150. It was lightweight and since my subject material was this garden, I didn't need fast focus or vibration reduction. So, as I started to lift the camera up to my face, I said out loud, "Yeah, right!" Like I was really gonna get this shot, but you know, that's the beauty of digital - delete image can follow right after seeing poor results in the LCD. But that would be if you got to take the photo at all. My cameras, in the mode I generally shoot - Aperture Priority, won't  let me take a picture unless it thinks something is in focus. I raised the camera to my eye and was surprised that I could see the blur of the bug and then sight it in the small bracket for focusing. Even more surprised when the critter came into sudden focus. Excited, I snapped the shutter, which usually means a blurry picture. I don't think I even looked at the LCD since I only took one shot. That evening when I was downloading the images onto my laptop. I saw the image in the Photoshop file browser and opened it up. I yelled out loud in delight. By the way, there was no cropping needed on it. What you see is the full frame image.

Anyway, now that I have used up some more of your time, I wondered how lucky that shot was and could I reproduce the results. I was going to the SF Zoo a lot during the summer since I am a member, and I had noticed at one end of the bald eagle pond in the back area near the bears, there was a large patch of reeds growing and these dragonflies flying all about that same end of the pond. There is a nice convenient tree trunk that sticks out over the wall that I would sit on with the 200-400 lens (at 400) on a monopod. During the first hour I tried, I got to snap the shutter 5 times. 3 turned out to be good enough to show you, the 4th was too blurred, and in the 5th, the bug had left the scene. And they were much smaller in the frame since they were generally 30-50 feet away from me. Those images are cropped for you to see more detail. I'll add a few more later. It was fun and challenging. During several visits afterwards, I was able to capture a few more, but now their season is over and I wait for the next.

So here I present to you a selection of dragonflies and butterflies, photos I have taken at several zoos with butterfly houses, like Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle. Also several of the stationary dragonflies were at that same pond (they did have to rest every now and then) and at other ponds in other zoos and gardens. I have yet to get a picture of a butterfly in flight nor can I remember ever trying.

8 Spotted Skimmer 1
American Lady 1
Blue Morpheus 1
Blue Morpheus 2
Blue-eyed Darner 1
Blue-eyed Darner 2
Blue-eyed Darner 3
Buckeye 1
Familiar Bluet 1
Isabella's Helconian 1
Julia 1
Malachite 1
Malachite 2
Cardinal Meadowhawk 1
Cardinal Meadowhawk 2
Monarch 1
Neurothemis 1
Queen 1
Spicebush Swallowtail 1
Spicebush Swallowtail 2
Western Swallowtail
White Peacock 1
Zebra Swallowtail 1

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