Butterfly & Nature Photography by Silvia Reiche
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Before & After II

30/8/2014

1 Comment

 
While I was writing the former blog I looked at the chrysalis of the Comma Butterfly and saw a butterfly sitting above the empty chrysalis. I inspected the chrysalis the evening before extensively with a torch to find colour details but as I did not find any emerging sign I assumed the chrysalis was dead. The chrysalis/butterfly fooled me!
Picture
Before
Picture
After
These days I could write daily a blog as so much interesting things are happening. Next to the Comma Butterfly I also had a chrysalis of the Red Admiral. Also this chrysalis did not have any colour changing signs and when I returned from my 'finding new caterpillars' tour I noticed that something else was sitting near the chryslis. It was a parasitoid wasp and looking at the hole in the chrysalis it was obvious where it came from.
Picture
Before
Picture
After
Although I have no butterfly and missed the chance to photograph a sequence of an emergence, I was very happy to catch the parasitoid wasp on the photo. Normally they are gone very quickly and I only find an empty chrysalis.
1 Comment

Painted Black

27/8/2014

1 Comment

 
Last Sunday morning I noticed that the two caterpillars of the Painted Lady were hanging upside down in the 'get ready to transform into a chrysalis' position. In the first place I was very happy that this occurs on Sunday and secondly that I had no appointments made for that day. With a cup of coffee and the camera in the right position I started waiting....and waiting....and waiting. Hours later, just when the light was perfect the caterpillar started to move up and down and up and down and....stopped. 
Some later when the sky was painted black, the Painted Lady started to transform....and that's how it often goes....waiting for nothing!
Picture
Picture
In the meantime all the caterpillars of the Peacock are transformed into a chrysalis and in contrast to my former a lot of them fall victim to parasitoids.
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A kind of 'worm' emerges the chrysalis through a slimy track, moves a bit and than it falls down to the ground to transform some later into a dark brown/black cocoon. At the moment about 50 to 60% of all chrysalises are brown with a slime path on it. Nature takes it course and while I'm writing this blog something unexpected is happening.....
1 Comment

Footless

23/8/2014

2 Comments

 
In my former blog I announced that with a lot of caterpillars and chrysalises I will 'return' soon. I collected some (around 80) of the Peacock caterpillars which I found in the border of Mrs van de Breemortels meadow. There are still plenty caterpillars left. To witness a transformation proces is a very special moment and outside it is almost impossible to see it, therefore I sometimes pick-up caterpillars (only the not endangered species!). Having some caterpillars inside always brings me some other information. This year, for the first time I saw the parasitoid of the Peacock as the cocon of the parasitoid wasp came out in an early stage. From the 80 caterpillars only two were infected with this parasitoid. That's not much comparing with the pieris family where is about 60 till 70% infected. Half of the caterpillars transformed into a chrysalis on the day I was at work but the other half transformed yesterday and I had the chance to witness/photograph some of them. 
Picture
Unfortunately the weather was too bad to photograph the process in their natural habitat outside, so inside, in front of a window with the garden in the background, I photographed some metamorphosises. One of the processes I catched from the front and on this sequence you can see how their little feet are moving up (actually it's the complete caterpillar skin) and disappear....instead a chrysalis appears. What an impressive spectacle!
2 Comments

Before & After

20/8/2014

3 Comments

 
Last Sunday I was walking in a beautful nature area together with an other nature photographer and we had a nice conversation about butterfly photography and the meaning of it (for me). Since I was a little girl, I was always interested in all stages of butterflies and I adored little, sometimes hairy caterpillars and allowed them to use my finger/hand to climb on. 
For me butterfly photography is the hole life-cycle and not only a beautiful photo of the imago. 
Twelve days ago everything started with the discovery of a Painted Lady caterpillar on a 'new' larval foodplant, Common Wormwood. Twelve days later the butterfly emerged and flew away. 
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Before
Picture
After
Finding caterpillars always give me a certain kind of exitement and so I searched a lot last week and visited some area's with thistles and Stinging Nettles. The most caterpillars I did not find in nature area's but in my own garden and in the meadow of Mrs van de Breemortel. In my own garden I found caterpillars of the Map Butterfly which will emerge, depending on the weather, this year as forma prosa (black) or next year as forma levana (orange).
Picture
Caterpillar Map Butterfly
In the meadow,/border of Mrs van de Breemortel I found at least two big nests of the Peacock Butterfly....over 200 caterpillars are crawling through the nettles at the moment....and I also have a chrysalis of the Red Admiral and the Comma Butterly......so this blog will be continued soon!
3 Comments

Happy Meal

15/8/2014

1 Comment

 
Picture
Since years I had the plan to create one day my own drive-in restaurant for butterflies with over-ripe fruit. As this is a very good fruit year and because there are more ripe prunes than there is capacity to make marmelade, eat them or bake prune pies, I feed the butterflies.
I took an old dish and filled it with very ripe or foulded and/or fermenting prunes and created my own drive-in restaurant for the Red Admiral. Sometimes a Comma Butterfly and/or Speckled Wood also visits my restaurant. 
It's funny how many other insects like different kind of flies, bees and wasps come too and how quick the prunes are eaten. On sunny days I counted at least 20 Red Admirals! 
Each day I had to fill the dish again with 'fresh' foulded prunes....their happy meal!
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1 Comment

Cloudbusting

10/8/2014

1 Comment

 
Picture
Yesterday, together with Bas I visited  the beautiful Eifel region again with the mission to find the Chalkhill Blue (Polyommatus coridon) and some other rare butterflies. We found some hundreds of the Chalkhill Blue butterflies but unfortunately we had some bad luck with the weather. Shortly after arrival it became very dark in the distance and with some drizzling rain, some sunlight and a rainbow  I made the last detail photos.
With the dark clouds a lot of heavy rain and wind came too. We decided to stay and to hide under the umbrella above the photo stuff. The heavy rain stopped after fifteen minutes, the stormy wind continued. The majority of the butterflies were resting below or in the grass; I found one male resting between a flower bud in the grass. With my beanbag and angle finder I was lying in the wet grass; due to the wind almost all the raindrops on/in the grass were gone. 
After a while the sun was shining every now and than and most of the butterflies became active again. Catching a male with open blue wings became a mission impossible and after a while we decided to return to the car. Due to the heavy rain the lowest part of the small road to exit the area was transformed into a mud pool and my car was gliding through the mud and it still has the colour of mud.....
We visited (without camera) an other (new) area for some investigations and probably we will visit this area again in 2015. 
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Picture
Cause every time it rains, 
You’re here in my head, 
Like the sun coming out,
Ooh, I just know that something good is gonna happen. 

© Kate Bush
1 Comment

Mozzy Party

7/8/2014

2 Comments

 
Although it was raining, my intuïtion told me that a beautiful sunset would appear this evening......and so it happened! But my intuïtion did fail me regarding the fact that I returned to the mozzy country. During my two weeks holiday in Bayern/Germany I did not see one single mozzy (ok, I'm not talking about the amount of grey horse-flies and their painful bites) so I forgot the presence of mozzies....and my leggs are now looking like a complete crumble cake!
Picture
Common Blue, Canon 7D, tripod, remote release, 180 mm, 1/250 sec, F3.5, ISO100
2 Comments

Black Saturday

2/8/2014

1 Comment

 
Everything has to come to an end.....two weeks holiday in the Bavarian Forest went by too quick unfortunately. The days that the weather was not against me were rare. I enjoyed the few mornings when my alarm clock went off early and with good music on Bayern 3 it was a pleasure to drive to the butterfly spots which I had discovered. 
The first spot was a small field near the road to the Dreisessel mountain in which I found a lot of erebia’s, some Nickerl’s Fritillaries and Purple-edged Coppers and to which I returned just in time to catch one of the two sunrises of my two weeks stay.
Picture
Later I found near this spot the very endangered Cranberry Blue and some Violet Coppers (see the chapter Bayerischer Wald). The second spot which I visited three times were the Dusky Large Blue area (see my both former blogs). 
The Dreisessel and the mountain tops nearby have some remarkable ‘hedgehog’ look because of the aggressive ( they attack and kill live trees) bark beetle.
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I had the plan to visit the Dreisessel area very early before sunrise but due to a lot of rain and/or fog my plans will move to 2015 when I will return to the same accommodation/area. 
It’s not often that I return to the same place, but Bayern and especially the people I met were special! And, last but not least the area is beautiful and has a lot of rare (endangerd) butterfly species to offer.
1 Comment
    Picture
    Jibt dir dit Leben mal een Buff, denn weene keene Träne. Lach Dir'n Ast und setz Dir druff und baumle mit de Beene.

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  • Home
    • Update News
  • About
    • Biography
    • Photography
    • Contact
  • Blog
  • Butterfly Gallery
    • Hesperiidae >
      • Chequered Skipper
      • Dingy Skipper
      • Essex Skipper
      • Grizzled Skipper
      • Large Chequered Skipper
      • Large Skipper
      • Mallow Skipper
      • Red-underwing Skipper
      • Silver-spotted Skipper
      • Small Skipper
    • Papilionidae >
      • Apollo
      • Clouded Apollo
      • Scarce Swallowtail
      • Swallowtail
      • Southern Swallowtail
      • Southern Festoon
      • Spanish Festoon
    • Pieridae >
      • Black-veined White
      • Green-veined White
      • Large White
      • Wood White
      • Small White
      • Orange-tip
      • Portuguese Dappled White
      • Provence Orange-tip
      • Western Dappled White
      • Brimstone
      • Cleopatra
      • Clouded Yellow
      • Pale Clouded Yellow
      • Berger's Clouded Yellow
      • Mountain Clouded Yellow
    • Lycaenidae >
      • Black Hairstreak
      • Brown Hairstreak
      • False Ilex Hairstreak
      • Green Hairstreak
      • Ilex Hairstreak
      • Purple Hairstreak
      • Sloe Hairstreak
      • White-letter Hairstreak
      • Large Copper
      • Purple-edged Copper
      • Purple-shot Copper
      • Scarce Copper
      • Small Copper
      • Sooty Copper
      • Violet Copper
      • Adonis Blue
      • Alcon Blue
      • Alpine Blue
      • Amanda's Blue
      • Baton Blue
      • Brown Argus
      • Chalkhill Blue
      • Chequered Blue
      • Common Blue
      • Cranberry Blue
      • Damon Blue
      • Dusky Large Blue
      • Escher's Blue
      • Geranium Argus
      • Glandon Blue
      • Green-underside Blue
      • Holly Blue
      • Idas Blue
      • Large Blue
      • Mazarine Blue
      • Mountain Alcon Blue
      • Northern Brown Argus
      • Piedmont anomalous Blue
      • Provence Chalkhill Blue
      • Reverdin's Blue
      • Ripart's anomalous Blue
      • Scarce Large Blue
      • Silver-studded Blue
      • Silvery Argus
      • Small Blue
      • Short-tailed Blue
      • Turquoise Blue
      • Duke of Burgundy
    • Nymphalidae >
      • Purple Emperor
      • Lesser Purple Emperor
      • White Admiral
      • Southern White Admiral
      • Hungarian Glider
      • Camberwell Beauty
      • Comma Butterfly
      • Large Tortoiseshell
      • Map Butterfly
      • Painted Lady
      • Peacock
      • Red Admiral
      • Small Tortoiseshell
      • Assmann's Fritillary
      • Bog Fritillary
      • Cardinal
      • Cranberry Fritillary
      • Dark Green Fritillary
      • False Heath Fritillary
      • Glanville Fritillary
      • Grisons Fritillary
      • Heath Fritillary
      • High Brown Fritillary
      • Knapweed Fritillary
      • Lesser Marbled Fritillary
      • Marbled Fritillary
      • Marsh Fritillary
      • Meadow Fritillary
      • Mountain Fritillary
      • Nickerl's Fritillary
      • Niobe Fritillary
      • Pearl-bordered Fritillary
      • Queen of Spain Fritillary
      • Shepard's Fritillary
      • Silver-washed Fritillary
      • Small Pearl-bordered Fritillary
      • Spotted Fritillary
      • Titania's Fritillary
      • Twin-Spot Fritillary
      • Weaver's Fritillary
    • Satyridae >
      • Alpine Heath
      • Arran Brown
      • Chestnut Heath
      • Dusky Heath
      • Gatekeeper
      • Great Banded Grayling
      • Large Ringlet
      • Large Wall Brown
      • Marbled White
      • Meadow Brown
      • Pearly Heath
      • Ringlet
      • Small Heath
      • Southern Grayling
      • Speckled Wood
      • Wall Brown
      • Woodland Grayling
      • Woodland Ringlet
    • Metamorphosises >
      • Spotted Fritillary
      • Large White
      • Red Admiral
      • Black-veined White
      • Map Butterfly
      • Swallowtail
      • Peacock
      • Orange-tip
      • Brimstone
      • Small Tortoiseshell
      • Painted Lady
      • Comma Butterfly
      • Portuguese Dappled White
      • Camberwell Beauty
      • Queen of Spain Fritillary
    • Alpine Species
    • Germany - Eifel
    • Butterflies in France
    • Butterflies NL
    • Threats & Enemies
    • UFI
  • Gallery A - Z
    • Amphibians
    • Aosta - Gran Paradiso
    • Ardeche
    • Bayerischer Wald
    • Beetles
    • Bluebell Forest
    • Caterpillars
    • Cevennes
    • Dordogne
    • Holy Love
    • Hungary
    • Insects - Others
    • Jumping Spiders
    • Kleine Beerze
    • Kleine Beerze II
    • Koebosch
    • Landschotse Heide
    • Little Owl
    • Luberon
    • Lueneburger Heide
    • Mercantour
    • Mercantour part II
    • Orchids Dream
    • Pink and Purple
    • Snakes and Reptiles
    • Spiders
    • Spring Flowers
    • Strabrechtse Heide
    • Styria
    • Teutoburger Wald
    • Toxic Tales
    • Var
  • Blog Vosges
    • Butterflies in the Vosges
    • Nature in the Vosges
    • House Gallery Vosges
  • Rust In Peace
    • Citroen
    • Ford
    • Hanomag
    • Mercedes
    • Peugeot
    • Renault
    • Simca
    • Sleeping Beauty