Beautifully coloured butterflies fluttering from bloom to bloom aren’t just fun and beautiful insects to watch. They also serve an essential purpose. Butterflies, bees, moths, birds and bats are responsible for pollinating over 75% of the world’s flowering plants.

The butterfly is a flying flower, the flower a tethered butterfly

Ponce Denis Écouchard Le Brun

Description

Like moths, the butterfly’s wings, bodies, and legs are covered with dust-like scales that come off when handled. However, unlike moths, who are active at night, butterflies are active during the day. They are also more brightly coloured and patterned than moths and have distinctive club-tipped s antennae. In addition, they hold their wings vertically over the back when at rest, while moths rest with flat wings.

The butterflies’ taste receptors are on their feet, so they taste the surface each time they land. Their diet is exclusively liquid as they don’t have the necessary apparatus for chewing. Instead, the butterfly uses its long proboscis like a straw to suck up nectar.

Their life cycle has four stages: egg, larvae (caterpillar), pupa (chrysalis) and adult (imago). Most butterflies and caterpillars feed on plants, and even then, only specific parts of specific types of plants.

Common egg fly butterfly

The most common butterfly in Australia is the Common Eggfly. The males have purple iridescent wings with white ‘egg’ spots. The female is brownish-black with white markings on the wing edges. The males are territorial and will physically battle other males over their territory. Fighting butterflies? Mind blown. They love human sweat and will land on you and drink it for the salt content lacking in flowers. A bacterial infection decimated the male population in 2001, killing 99% of the males. However, over time, they developed an immunity to the disease, and by 2007, the population had recovered to 40%

Cairns Birdwing

The biggest butterfly in Australia is the Cairns Birdwing. They are endemic to pockets of north-eastern coastal Queensland. With a wingspan that can reach 20cm (in the females, which are larger than the males), they are the largest butterfly species native to Australia and among the largest butterflies on Earth.

Photographing butterflies

The best time to photograph butterflies is spring and summer; especially in the early morning and late evening. This is because they will be cooler, slower and more sluggish.  A tripod will help, as will focusing with live view.  Focus on the butterfly head and eyes.  Go for a low F stop to make the butterfly pop out against a silky smooth bokeh background. 

Just as with flowers, the wind is our enemy here.  Even the slightest breeze will cause problems.  Look at the forecast before heading out – wind at less than 10kph is ideal.

I prefer a macro when shooting butterflies and an ISO of 100-640, depending on the light (but I try to keep it under 200).  I set my F stop to F5.6 with a shutter speed of 1/180th second if static on a flower and 1/500 if they are moving the wings.  .  The best way is to find a flower or shrub they are hovering around and wait for them to land.  They won’t be wary of you if you aren’t moving around.

In post-processing, you can crop your image to get even closer.  If you have to crop heavily, you can upsize the image larger again with no loss of quality by using Topaz Gigapixel (they have a free trial too).

Fun Facts

• A flock of butterflies is called a Kaleidoscope.
• There are 15,000 to 20,000 butterfly species in the world
• The average lifespan of an adult butterfly is three to four weeks (though the North American Monarch can last two to eight months). However, the Mayfly only lives 24 hours.
• Butterflies see a range of ultraviolet colours invisible to the human eye.

A great place to practice your butterfly photograph is at a Butterfly house. In Melbourne, the Melbourne Zoo Butterfly House is my go-to. If you are travelling, the Australian Butterfly Sanctuary in Kuranda, Cairns, Qld, is a fabulous place to visit.