Wordless Wednesday Wings

Swallowing my Embarrassment

"Tippy Toeing!"

It’s been so long since I’ve done a blog post, that I’ve actually become embarrassed to post again – which has made it become even longer:-\ So, I’m swallowing my embarrassment, and sharing some recent photos. I thought it was only appropriate that my subject be Swallowtail Butterflies:-) I believe these are all Anise Swallowtails, but if not, please let me know – are the females much larger than the males? Anyways, I hope you enjoy these photos, and that you’ll stay tuned for more posts... I promise it won't be so long in between!

"Portrait of a Butterfly"

"Butterfly Light"

"Butterfly Beauty"

"Get a Grip!"

"Glider"

"Hello, Yellow!"

Several of these photos are available in my shop here: Butterfly photos. All of these photos were taken with my Canon Digital Rebel XT and 55-250mm f4/5.6 lens. I’ve decided that Shutter Priority works best for butterflies, because they’re so fast and erratic, darting in and out of shadows. My main speed is 1250 with ISO 400 – I haven’t played with ISO 800 yet, but I might see how it does noise-wise to see if I can go with a faster shutter speed. I thought hummingbirds were hard to capture, but butterflies have been even more challenging! Love them, though, and these are just a fraction of the photos that I now have.

Willpower

"Keep on Keepin' on!"

I took these photos last week, while watering our plants. This beautiful Anise Swallowtail (Papilio zelicaon) came over, and actually stayed for a bit. You can see from the first photo just how gorgeous s/he was - looks perfect, right? Well, this beautiful butterfly had a secret that wasn't obvious at first glance, with the rapid movement of the wings. I kept thinking something didn't look right, and finally realized that a good portion of the wings on the other side were torn off - as you can see in the bottom photo. I have no idea of the thought processes of a butterfly, all I know is that it has to be extremely difficult to fly with so much of your wings missing. Yet, this butterfly was bound and determined, and was flying all over. S/he didn't know to give up - a powerful message, no matter who or what delivers it:-)

There is probably no better deliverer of that message than Nick Vujicic in the video below. I'd seen him online before, but it had been a while. This video was at the bottom of a recent Cheryl Richardson newsletter, and I'm so glad I clicked to see what it was!

The words in this video really resonate with me - heck, it brings me to tears each time I watch it. It's all in how we see things, isn't? Determination and appreciation are beautiful things.

"Willpower"