We have a double this week, a cabbage white butterfly (Pieris rapae) and thistle flowers (Asteraceae.) The thistle is not so surprising, since while it is abundant in central New York where I took this, I haven’t yet seen it in North Carolina where I spend the vast majority of my time, and truth be told, I don’t seek out thistle flowers as photo subjects – it was the cabbage white that attracted my attention. Those can be found all over the US, but I had a vague suspicion that maybe I didn’t have much chance to see one since their preferred food was thistle nectar; a check with BugGuide.net disavowed me of that notion – they sup from lots of plants. So perhaps it was just that I don’t often pursue the smaller butterflies. Or maybe they really are scarce around here, for whatever reason.
It was the delicate green color that made me frame this subject, but the other reason that I feature this here is that it was taken not with any form of macro lens, but the Tamron 150-600 at 600mm instead, which can’t focus within two meters. I admit I was chasing birds instead that day, but this subject presented itself and so I snagged it, and was lucky enough to catch the multiple false pupils in the eyes (we are talking about the butterfly right now.)
Actually, I tell a lie. Not only have I featured thistle flowers here before, I can now recall two separate occasions where I found them in North Carolina (neither of them is that link, which was Florida.) I don’t think I’ve posted images of either of those occasions here, but obviously I still showed thistles at that link, so we only have the cabbage white as a singular appearance. At least so identified. It’s probably not even the only ‘macro’ shot with that lens featured here. I’ll try and do better next week…