Butterfly Watching and Photographing at West Coast Park
by Ben Jin, Feb 2002

his is one of my favorite places for watching and photographing butterflies and for family outings. Down here at Car Park No. 2, we enjoy our picnic together, do some reading under the shade of trees, cycling and sometimes my kids even go round hunting for butterflies so that I can photograph them.  
 

West Coast Park Lantana Bush

Fig 1 : Pygmy Blue Fig 2 : Common Grass Yellow

The resident butterflies here include the very small Pygmy Blue (Fig 1), many of which are found fluttering around the Lantana bushes, the Common Grass Yellow butterflies (Fig 2) can be seen on the same locality and on nearby Peacock Flower bushes.  The Lemon (Fig 3) and Orange (Fig 4) Emigrant are also frequent visitors to the place. Very often they can be seen chasing each other in flight. If you are lucky enough, you will be able to see many Common Tigers (Fig 5) visiting the Lantana flowers. They usually rest on the leaves of the Spider Lily or on the Cannaindica/Cannaceae plants. Other species spotted here include the Lime Butterfly, Chocolate Pansy, Leopard, Painted Jezebel, Peacock Pansy, Common Tit and Striped Albatross.

Fig 3 : Lemon Emigrant

Fig 4 : Orange Emigrant

To preserve these beautiful images before they disappear from earth and for record purposes,  I use a 100mm macro lens attached to my camera. For smaller species, I use off camera flash mounted on a bracket so that the lens will not cast any shadow on the film. Another advantage of recording a species on film is that it is possible to do a closer examination right after a sighting because identifying live specimens in the field can sometimes be very difficult. They are either in flight or moving from flower to flower or simply too fast to be seen clearly.

Since I started butterfly photography, I realized that there is no better alternative than to get close to the subject to see each detail on their wings and the excitement to be able to get so close. In order to get close to the subject, I usually wear middle-toned green or gray shirt  and pants.

Fig 5 : Common Tiger

Also, I try to approach them while they are engage in something that will preoccupy them such as when they are feeding. Try not to cast any shadows as they might think that you are a predator and fly away. Different species has different comfort zones and beyond that you may lose them before you get the chance to fire the shutter. Minimizing large movements, move very slowly and get yourself low on the ground certainly helps. It is better to shoot from eye level and ensure that the object is sharply focused. It would be ideal if you can get the entire wing in sharp focus by combining aperture, shutter speed and flash but a word of caution as it is difficult to implement in the field as butterflies will not pose and wait for you.

Once I get the images up on a PC monitor, I always invite my family members to comment, critique and identify. Most importantly, this exercise gets them involved in learning more about butterflies. By this way, I'm also doing my part to nurture new nature enthusiasts.