How to Photograph Butterflies by Anna Hipke-Krueger - Barbra Bretting Non-Fiction Runner-Up -
I ’ m a few yards from the employee entrance of the Northern Great Lakes Visitor Center when I see it : a butterfly . Its jagged wings are taller than they are wide , maybe an inch and a half long over all , and mottled grey underneath with a flash of orange when they open . This makes it an anglewing , part of a family of woodland butterflies all with those long , tooth-edged wings . From the color , I ’ d guess that it ’ s an Eastern Comma , probably the same one I saw on a walk of the grounds a month ago . That time I only managed a single , blurry photo from more than a yard away before a storm blew in and the butterfly sought shelter , vanishing among the grey tree trunks . I ’ ve looked for it in the same place almost every day since then without luck ; now here it is , challenging me to get a good picture before I have to start work . It ’ s a game I ’ m determined to win .
People at the NGLVC call me “ the butterfly lady .” I ’ ve even received mail addressed that way . Besides teaching visitors about butterflies and native plants for an hour a week ( my actual job ), I raise Monarchs on my desk and amuse the maintenance guys with my butterfly-chasing antics . I ’ ve been known to stop mid-sentence in a conversation and fling my arm across a coworker ’ s chest to draw his attention to a Summer Azure in the middle of the path . I take these little insects seriously , partly because I take everything seriously , but mostly because few other people seem to . Our culture loves butterflies in its way , but in American minds they ’ re closely linked to little girls , fairies , sugar , spice , and all the rest . Butterflies , then , like most things girl , have largely been misunderstood . If all we knew about butterflies were what we learned from their representations in department stores , we would think that their native habitat is princesses ’ shoulders and that they have cartoon wings that come in only three different colors : white , orange , and blue .
As it turns out , there are as many as 20,000 species of butterfly distributed on every continent except Antarctica , with more than 150 in my home state of Wisconsin alone , and they exhibit more colors and patterns than a book of wallpaper samples . Far from being twee , butterflies have besides their gorgeous wings those same characteristics that we find so repulsive in all insects — the huge eyes , the segmented body with the fat , ridged thorax — plus hair . That most people don ’ t know this shows that we haven ’ t been looking very hard . But that ’ s not surprising . Really seeing butterflies requires attention to detail , patience , and receptivity , all qualities that are discouraged by our speed-obsessed culture , and we have a bad habit of trying not to see what offends our rigid sense of the beautiful . Butterflies don ’ t seem to give a damn what we think of them , though , or even whether we see them at all . They don ’ t pander ; for the most part , they demand that we come to them . The Jutta Arctic , for example , can only been seen in small numbers in northern bogs , and only around the middle of May . Though the Baltimore Checkerspot is more common and longer-lived , the caterpillars eat only a single native plant : turtlehead . No turtlehead , no Checkerspot . On the other hand , butterflies can appear when we least expect them , like this Comma in the driveway . So to photograph butterflies , you have to play by their rules or not at all .
I pull my point-and-shoot camera from my backpack and toss the pack to the ground . Like always , I take a few shots before trying to get closer . If the butterfly flies away before I can take any others , these photos are at least a way to check my identification and record the sighting . The Comma is peddling : crawling across the damp concrete and probing for minerals with its tongue , the straw-like proboscis , as it slowly fans its wings to collect warmth from the sun . I inch closer as smoothly as possible to avoid drawing its attention . Butterflies have remarkably good eyesight , and if it sees me move , I may never see it again . When I ’ m a few feet away , I get down on my belly , set my camera to macro , and wriggle even closer until the lens is only a couple inches from the insect .
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