So far my blog posts have chronicled my pictures of insects pretty much in the chronological order they were taken, but I thought I'd post up this recent picture - a rare treat I saw while on holiday in the south of France this summer. Pictures like this really exemplify the advantages of digital photography. I noticed this beautiuful Scarce Swallowtail feeding on some plants by the beach, and it afforded some great opportunities to take lots of photographs. With traditional film I might have taken perhaps 3 pictures at most, because of the need to save pictures for other things on holiday, but with digital I could snap away and then select the best shots later. In fact I think I took about 20, but only three were really good enough. Partly this is because I was using a zoom lens on macro facility, hand held, so getting the focus sharp is extremely difficult. I've sharpened the pictures up slightly using Picasa.
The Scarce Swallowtail is not, I have read, actually as rare as the Swallowtail, which it resembles. I have a photograph of the latter, which I'll post up at a later date. While they are both very beautiful butterflies, I think the the Scarce Swallowtail has the edge in terms of attractiveness.
I don't know what the attractive plant is that the butterfly is on. Any ideas?
