Leps from work

This afternoon I took a bit of time to try out my new lens. I have owned it for a more than a week and used it a few times, but that was mostly for documentation purposes. Today was fairly overcast and I noticed quite a bit of activity with the butterflies, so I dragged the lens out into the field. 

Some of the first butterflies I noticed were some skippers low in the sedges of the tallgrass prairie. Here is a Least: 

Least Skipper - Windsor, Ontario

 and presumably, a Little Glassywing.

Little Glassywing - Windsor, ON

This was the only American Lady seen -it was frequenting a patch of Ironweed.

American Lady - Windsor, Ontario

It didn't take me long before I decided to chase after some of the swallowtails, working a bunch of Ironweed and Dense Blazingstar. I was happy to get close to a pair of Giant Swallowtails and grab my first shots of this species.

Giant Swallowtail - Windsor, Ontario

 This Black Swallowtail was an easy photo subject. The clouds had lifted at this point, making the light slightly harsher.

Black Swallowtail - Windsor, Ontario

Black Swallowtail - Windsor, Ontario

Also observed were Eastern Tiger and Spicebush Swallowtails. It was easy to miss a lot of the skippers with the big, gaudy species vying for attention. I did snap a few photos.

Silver-spotted Skippers were seen from far away as they patrolled many of the flowering plants.

Silver-spotted Skipper - Windsor, Ontario

There were a few small, whitish butterflies down low in the grasses. I managed to get a good look at an Acadian Hairstreak as well as photograph Eastern Tailed-Blue and Summer Azure.

Eastern Tailed-Blue - Windsor, Ontario

Summer Azure - Windsor, Ontario

A few Hummingbird Clearwings were see and I was happy to get a photo I was quite happy with, even though I didn't freeze the wings.

Hummingbird Clearwing - Windsor, ON

Monarch - Windsor, ON

More butterflies

As promised here are a few butterfly photos from lately. A lot of new species have emerged in the past week or two and I've been trying to get decent photos of as many of them as I can.

I took a break for an hour with my coworker Shane on June 13th, so we ventured into the Spring-garden area to see what we could find. Along with Summer Azures, Northern Crescents, Black Swallowtails, and a few more of the regulars, we also saw:

Silvery Checkerspot

Least Skipper

Peck's Skipper

And the highlight of the walk - 2 adult Eastern Foxsnakes. This female was pit-tagged by Ojibway in 2004. She was 66 grams then (just a baby) and was now over 450 grams. Considering that some of our Eastern Foxsnakes are close to 900 grams, this puts into perspective the longevity of these snakes.

Eastern Foxsnake

A few more butterflies from this week:

Northern/Pearl Crescent

European Skipper

European Skipper

 The Baltimore Checkerspots are still common in the Tallgrass Prairie across from the Ojibway Nature Centre.

Baltimore Checkerspot

Baltimore Checkerspot

 Some of the next few I am not too sure on the IDs.

Southern Cloudywing

Hobomok Skipper

European Skipper

Wild Indigo Duskywing

In other news, I finally ordered a Nikon 300mm f/4 AF-S lens. While not one of the huge telephotos that are 5,000-10,000$, this is still a very good quality lens for a fraction of the price. Image quality appears excellent with this lens - the only drawbacks being reach (its only 300 mm) and brightness (if it is used with a teleconverter). This is my first lens that isn't a macro or wide-angle lens, so I am pretty excited to test it out with some butterflies and birds...