Lmst

One of the "blues" and I have no idea which species. Pretty sure the only way to identify these things is to dunk in a jar of formaldehyde and send to a museum somewhere in London.

Which I do not want to do. Happy just to take photos thanks.

Anyway, the Nepali name for butterfly is Putali. Do whatever you want with that information.

#Butterflies #FlutterByes #Putali #Photography #Lumix #TheJoyOfTashi

I love the hairy hues hidden away inside the wings. Classy.

These little fellas were so hard to get close to. Every so often one will give up for a while and let you take a shot.

#FlutterByes #ButterFlies #Photography #Lumix #TheJoyOfTashi

Butterfly posing for the macro. With them weird eyes.

We're into the butterfly section of this journey. Could be here for a while!

#Photography #TheJoyOfTashi #Lumix #FlutterByes

Taken with the Lumix S1RII and Lumix 100mm macro F2.8

Little things make all the difference. We spent nearly two hours today just dottering about a patch of marigolds at a temple. Didn't walk far at all, just waited for butterflies to drop by and offer a shot.

Photography is a marvellous way to avoid exercise :)

#Nepal #Himalayas #Photography #Butterflies #Lumix #FlutterByes #Annapurnas #EwenInNepal

Might have been a "clouded yellow" of some sort. Might not. Saw about 7 species of butterfly today. One was a grass dart, very cute. One was a pale blue of some sort, and another maybe the female of a sapphire. I used to know this stuff better, but my brain grows lazy by the hour!

A #Butterfly warms itself in the bright Springtime sun on my back porch.

(Apologies for the camera movements. My hand is not always steady.)

#SilentSunday #Butterflies #IllinoisWildlife #Bugstodon #Schmetterling #Flutterbyes #ButterfliesOfMastodon #Schmetterlingen #Flutterby #WildlifePhotography #Spring

Melbourne this morning. Cabbage Butterflies in the sage bushes.

The bokeh on the 100mm F2.8 macro is a bit lush. These shots on the S5II.

#Photography #WalkInTheHood #Butterflies #FlutterByes #Melbourne #NotTennis

These guys have been our constant companions while staying in this patch of forest near Paro. Rain or sunshine, they are flitting about and adding a touch of joy to the landscape.

I wish I'd spent a little more time capturing them now. Instead, I let the fancy ones distract me too often! I have the same problem with donuts.

#Bhutan #Paro #Photography #Lumix #FlutterByes #Himalayas #Butterflies #Ypthima #NotADonut

@photography

Ypthima trying to dry out it's wings a little after a big night of rain. Just hanging in the cool morning air. Farewell little buddies.

These fellas were more interested in licking rocks, for salt or minerals or whatever, than flying away from my lens. A real treat for my walk this morning.

Western Courtier (Sephisa dichroa).

#Bhutan #Paro #Photography #Lumix #FlutterByes #Himalayas #Butterflies #SephisaDichroa #SaltLickers

Such a gorgeous rich black on the upper wings

Gonna try to get some clearer pics of this guy tomorrow. I saw a pair of them looping around that same patch of forest today, I think I can find them again tomorrow.

Might be harder to get an ID than get a photo though. Crazy gorgeous stone-like lower wing, plus electric blue streaks on the upper.

Nature is just unbelievably amazing.

#Bhutan #Bumthang #Photography #Lumix #FlutterByes #Himalayas #Butterflies #WeirdBugsAreCoolBugs

Me in the morning vs me in the afternoon.

#Bhutan #Bumthang #Photography #Lumix #FlutterByes #Himalayas #Butterflies

Azure Sapphire, maybe Green Sapphire. The bottom blue hues are hard to spot unless you get exactly the right light.

No idea what butterfly this is, but was hiding some awesome blue stripes on upper wings.

I'll wrap it up there. I could have spent hours at the site observing all the moths and trying to capture them with a little more art. Bhutan throws all manner of surprises at me, but rarely something so impressive and unexpected.

Hope you enjoyed getting a glimpse into this world too.

10/10

#Mothstodon #སྤྱན་སྡེབ་སྦྱིས་མཆོད་རྟེན། #Bhutan #Chendebji #Photography #Lumix #FlutterByes #Himalayas #Butterflies #NotButterflies #MothsToTheLight

Stunning blend of nature, art, camouflage and chutzpah.

I just can't express how much I love those 60s and 70s designs on some of these critters. Pure art. I couldn't paint something that beautiful if I tried.

9/x

#Mothstodon #སྤྱན་སྡེབ་སྦྱིས་མཆོད་རྟེན། #Bhutan #Chendebji #Photography #Lumix #FlutterByes #Himalayas #Butterflies #NotButterflies #MothsToTheLight #NatureIsArt

A hint of yellow in the colour range too. I can dig it.

8/x

#Mothstodon #སྤྱན་སྡེབ་སྦྱིས་མཆོད་རྟེན། #Bhutan #Chendebji #Photography #Lumix #FlutterByes #Himalayas #Butterflies #NotButterflies #MothsToTheLight

Art deco moth with a touch of Frank Lloyd Wright.

None of these guys were doing a great job of hiding I might add. Most were just clinging to grooves in the side of the chorten. Many were on their last legs too, barely able to fly.

A few had camouflage more suited to the forest than a white washed temple.

7/x

#Mothstodon #སྤྱན་སྡེབ་སྦྱིས་མཆོད་རྟེན། #Bhutan #Chendebji #Photography #Lumix #FlutterByes #Himalayas #Butterflies #NotButterflies #MothsToTheLight

I was fascinated by this glimpse into the wild moths of Bhutan. Makes you wonder what else is hiding out there in the forests? You just need the right triggers to bring them "into the light".

I found one fluffy white moth with metallic teal spots. In the right light, the blue/green hues shine back at the lens.

6/x

#Mothstodon #སྤྱན་སྡེབ་སྦྱིས་མཆོད་རྟེན། #Bhutan #Chendebji #Photography #Lumix #FlutterByes #Himalayas #Butterflies #NotButterflies #MothsToTheLight

I can tell you that Chendebji is covered in white lime. The stupa and chorten are very very white.

But in recent times they repainted and added some super bright flood lights. When I stepped closer to these, I found literally thousands of dead moths.

Not to say they wouldn't have died somewhere in the forest anyway, but it seemed very sad.

4/x

#Mothstodon #སྤྱན་སྡེབ་སྦྱིས་མཆོད་རྟེན། #Bhutan #Chendebji #Photography #Lumix #FlutterByes #Himalayas #Butterflies #NotButterflies #MothsToTheLight

The sheer variety of moths in one tiny little space was amazing. But why?

I did notice that a lot of them were white. And one particular species far outnumbered the others. The doorway was awash with moths.

I know next to nothing about moths myself. I've only just tuned my brain into being more aware of butterflies.

3/x

#Mothstodon #སྤྱན་སྡེབ་སྦྱིས་མཆོད་རྟེན། #Bhutan #Chendebji #Photography #Lumix #FlutterByes #Himalayas #Butterflies #NotButterflies #MothsToTheLight

Not just a few moths. But thousands and thousands of moths.

When I first stepped through the archway I noticed a few moths on the timber, then I noticed a few more. And the more I looked, the more I noticed.

I started taking photos. I was in a rush and a little confused. Not much art to my snaps. I just kept taking shots.

2/x

#Mothstodon #སྤྱན་སྡེབ་སྦྱིས་མཆོད་རྟེན། #Bhutan #Chendebji #Photography #Lumix #FlutterByes #Himalayas #Butterflies #NotButterflies #MothsToTheLight

The first archway leading down to Chendebji.

I want to tell a little story about a stupa in Bhutan called Chendibji, a beautiful place I have visited many times but has a sad story.

It's a special place for Bhutanese, a spiritual place surrounded by wild forests. Recently they restored the stupa and chorten and installed immense flood lights to illuminate at night.

Moths flock to it.

1/x

#Mothstodon #སྤྱན་སྡེབ་སྦྱིས་མཆོད་རྟེན། #Bhutan #Chendebji #Photography #Lumix #FlutterByes #Himalayas #Butterflies #NotButterflies #MothsToTheLight