Crescent butterfly via cell phone

Images of undisturbed subjects in their natural environment. All subject types.

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Crescent butterfly via cell phone

Post by rjlittlefield »

This is kind of the ultimate grab-for-ID shot.

Image

Motivation was that I walked out into the alley behind my house, saw a small brown butterfly that I'm not used to seeing there, and wanted to get a positive ID on it. When it came to rest, I slowly approached and photographed it with the only device at my disposal: an HTC Droid Incredible 2 smart phone. Max zoom from a few inches away, using tap-to-focus on the butterfly. The phone really wanted to focus on the background, but with the subject filling enough of the frame, I finally got it to do the right thing. Auto exposure, auto color which came out too red, corrected with Image > Auto Color in Photoshop.

The butterfly appears to be Phyciodes mylitta, the Mylittta Crescent [REF]. Butterflies of Cascadia describes it as
Habitat and Range
Praries, marshes, unmown city lots, weedy fields, forest glades, roadsides, meadows, industrial wasteland, and many other kinds of open space, from sea level to middle-montane altitudes. Throughout western Nortn America, all of Cascadia. Common even in coastal Washington.
Art Shapiro's Butterfly Site has an even more detailed description, including discussion of how immigrant species of plants have widely expanded the range of this butterfly.

--Rik

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