Wildlife

I often have fantastic and heart warming experiences with nature and this encounter was no exception. I opened up my wooden office one sunny morning in May (yes, we did see some in May 08 but not for long!) to find this little butterfly madly bumping into the window he was trying to fly through. I opened the double doors but he continued to flutter around the windows. Looking around for a solution I decided to pick a flowering aquilegia and offer him the flower for safe transport out of the office. He immediately flew onto the flower.

Taking care not to frighten him off, I carefully ‘planted’ the stem of the aquilegia into the lawn. He remained there; just sitting. Deciding to go and get the camera but thinking that by the time I came back he would be long gone, I rushed into the house. When I arrived back my butterfly friend was still happily sitting on the purple flower. He allowed me the time to get the camera, adjust settings, place close-up lenses on and take 89 pictures. The whole process took about 15 minutes and my friend fluttered about the flowers and posed for me. I would like to think that this was his way of saying ‘thank you’ for setting him free.

This was one of many photos I tried to take of bees that resided in our garden in 2009. They worked so hard all spring and summer pollinating our fruit and vegetables and collecting nectar for themselves. Then one day they all disappeared and we were left with our memories of them and a few nice photos.
Taking photos of bees is actually quite hard. They never spend much time in one place and are never still.