canadian tiger swallowtails (4macros)

[jonny_redhorse]

there must have been 25-30 of these flying around the beach this morning chasing each other around ...they'd land and cluster together(called "Puddling" males only thing) sometimes 7 or 8 at a time(looking for liquids during the mating time)...neat to watch........and of course I had both of my cameras.... jonny

the "underside" of their wings:

[carlcmc]

nice photos.

[jonny_redhorse]

Thanks Carl!....jonny

[Deitz Dittrich]

Wow, thats darn cool!~ Awesome!

[MN Shutterbug]

Awesome color and sharpness.

[Dbl]

Those are some cool shots. I love the top one with the three in a row. Nice job, thats a tough depth of field shot.

[Steve Foss]

Nice stuff Jonny. Most macro work is done with a very shallow depth of field to isolate the subject from the background/foreground, but that obviously would not have worked here, and you did well to get all three butterflies in focus.

What makes it a Canadian tiger swallowtail?

[Fishbitten]

Your pics are great,i love the underside of the wings.You should make calenders and sell them!!!!

[jonny_redhorse]

Thanks all!....Guess I really learned something this year in regards to the swallowtails.if you want pics of em.go down to any wet sandy beach area this next week or so...the males congregate there ...not to say that's the only place obviously but today I went again to another lake for some panfishing.........and there they were! on the wet sandy area again....but...already had enough pics of the little guys!.....Steve...as far as why I called it a "canadian" swallowtail.it's in my butter fly field guide ...it could be a regular old tiger swallowtail but the one in the book I have(by Larry Weber,"Butterflies of the Northwoods)looks "exactly" like a canadian tiger swallowtail but i guess there's so many species of tiger swallowtails I certainly could be wrong ...jonny

[Steve Foss]

Jonny, if you made your ID out of one of the Weber series, then it's gold as far as I'm concerned. I've got a couple of those (not the butterflies one, but that's on my list), and there are no better guides for the Northland. One exception: Mammals of the Great Lakes by Larry Kurta puts all the other mammal guides to shame for our region. Well, I don't know that Weber has a mammals guide out, anyway.

Good work!