Seconds Count When You're Photographing Butterflies

When you're capturing images of butterflies, seconds count.

They're unpredictable. They move from fluttering to fleeting. And just when you're focused on where they are, they aren't there anymore. Where'd they go? Oh, over there!

Take the case of the Gulf Fritillary (Agraulis vanillae), aka the passion butterfly. Gulf Frits lay their eggs on their host plant, the passionflower vine (Passiflora). So it makes sense that males will patrol the vine. It's where the girls are.

And where the camera usually isn't.

And if you happen upon a mating pair, and hordes of other Gulf Frit males are disrupting the "passion," they'll take off, intertwined, for another spot. A little seclusion in "the bedroom," please, and then it's off to "the kitchen," where the nectar-producing flowers are.

This pair (below) found one another on the passionflower vine as other males bombarded them. They lumberingly headed for another spot, and the rest is history. Or her-story. Soon the female will be back laying eggs on the Passiflora, and the cycle of egg, caterpillar, chrysalid and adult will begin all over again.

These images were taken with a Nikon D800 equipped with the macro zoom lens, 70-180mm f/4.5-5.6D ED. Settings: ISO 800, f-stop, 13; and shutter speed, 1/640 of a second.

Seconds count. No, not just seconds. Fractions of a second!