The accommodating Comma

click photo to enlarge
The Big Butterfly Count is currently underway in  the UK. This year it is running from 20th July to 11th August. An annual event organised by Butterfly Conservation, it enlists volunteers to count the species and number of butterflies on a bright or sunny day, in any location, over a period of 15 minutes. Results are collected and collated and help to give a picture of the relative health of the country's butterfly populations.

I recently consulted last year's results to find out the status of the Comma that I'd been photographing, at my wife's request, in our garden. Last year's wet summer produced somewhat atypical results with the Meadow Brown the runaway winner in terms of numbers. The commonest butterflies in my garden this year are (with last year's placings in brackets) Small White (4), Large White (5), Peacock (16), Red Admiral (11) and Small Tortoiseshell (10). However, we see several more including the Brimstone, Wall, Painted Lady and others. The Comma also turns up now and again. Last year it was the 12th commonest species nationwide.

The Comma is named after the small white comma-like mark on the underside of its wings. It's an attractive butterfly with its orange and black markings and ragged edged wings. A characteristic that endears it to me as a photographer is the fact that it scares much less easily than, say, Peacocks and Red Admirals, when the camera lens approaches it. I took today's shot with a 100mm macro lens that had a hood mounted on the end of it. The butterfly tolerated the edge of the hood a matter of 10 centimetres or less from it, and that when the camera was mounted on a bright silver tripod. A very accommodating butterfly in that respect.

Less accommodating in its choice of flowers however. A bright orange Comma butterfly on a pink and orange Coneflower (Echinacea) with green leaves in the background makes for an eye-watering colour combination. They would become my number one butterfly in all respects if they'd feed on one of our dusky blue flowers so I could compose photographs with colours more to my liking!

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 100mm macro
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/80 sec
ISO: 200
Exposure Compensation:  0 EV
Image Stabilisation: Off

Wheat, wires and Large Whites

click photo to enlarge
Over the summer I've gradually got the impression that this year is a good one for butterflies. So, I did a bit of online research and ended up at the website of Butterfly Conservation. Here I read this by their Surveys Manager, Richard Fox: "The picture for native British butterflies remains mixed. Numbers appear to be up on the previous two summers, which were extremely wet and dire for butterflies. This summer has been better so far, in spite of the recent showers. If the wet summers had continued some endangered species such as the Heath Fritillary were vulnerable to extinction. The good news is the Heath Fritillary appears to have rallied and is having a good year. But numbers overall are still well down on a decade ago." So it seems that 2009 is a better year relatively speaking.

As I write my lavender is besieged by Large Whites, Painted Ladies, Peacocks, Common Walls and Small Tortoiseshells. The Painted Ladies have been particularly noticeable this year, but I was amazed to read that this migratory species may be represented by 1 billion specimens in the UK at the moment! The other species that have been much more numerous are the Small and Large Whites. Our cabbages have been receiving their eggs (soon to be caterpillars) despite us offering the compensating attractions of buddleia and lavender.

On a visit to Sempringham church (click link then scroll down for links) the other day I noticed an opportunity to add to my collection of images of tractor tracks (click link then scroll down for links). The additional interest offered by these particular tracks, in a field of very ripe wheat, was the telegraph pole and wires that stretched across the sky. As I stood, considering my shot, listening to the crackle of the ripe seed heads, I noticed Large White butterflies crossing the field. I quickly composed this shot that includes one of them on the right, hoping that it was sufficiently near to be recognisable for what it was.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 16mm (32mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/1250
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -1.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Anhedonia and painted ladies

click photo to enlarge
The other day I came across an interesting word that is new to me. "Anhedonia" means the inability to experience pleasure from normally pleasurable events. The word was used in the context of an article that was discussing how women's happiness relative to men's has declined markedly in the last 25 years, particularly in the UK and the US. Both British and American researchers have found that well-being across both sexes has declined since the early 1970s, but that during that period women have gone from a position of higher rates of well-being than men, to having lower rates. So it seems that, despite the advances in the economic and social position of women in society that occurred during those years, in terms of happiness, women have lost out more than men.

Explanations for this state of affairs are many, but one that interested me was the suggestion that the reference group and expectations against which women measure themselves has changed markedly, and that women constantly find themselves coming up short when set against the standards others (and they themselves) expect. What does this theory mean in practice? Well, some see young women as more narcissistic than in the past, with unrealistic expectations of what they can be and can achieve in life. The reference points of many women are the painted ladies of "reality" TV, the rich and famous of music and cinema, the wives of high-earning sportsmen, and the women who are simply "famous for being famous" - the Paris Hiltons of this world. The psychologist, Oliver James, calls this a "consumerised, commercially driven version of femininity."

During my time working in education I saw this trend developing as young girls stepped into teenage ever earlier, drawn there by powerful forces that seemed beyond their family's and their own control. While the 11 year old boys were still kicking their footballs around, buying the latest Manchester United soccer kit, and riding their BMXs, many of the girls of the same age were shopping for the same skimpy clothes and make-up their 18 year old sisters were wearing, which in turn were based on those seen on 24 year olds on MTV, Big Brother, and in the "celebrity" magazines. Childhood, for girls, moreso than for boys, seemed to be getting shorter and shorter.

Speaking of painted ladies, the buddleia flowers in our garden have been crawling with them - the butterflies (Vanessa cardui) that is! I've seen more of the species this year than ever before, and so I thought it a good opportunity to photograph one. Insect hunting with a camera, as I've said elsewhere, isn't something that especially appeals to me, but a shot showing the butterfly in context presents a certain challenge and satisfaction, so here's the best of the images I took.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 150mm (300mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/250
ISO: 400
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On