Monarchs galore!

A slight interruption from the caterpillar programming - I should have one more upcoming post featuring some really cool larval finds from recent days.

For the third time in six years, a large group of migratory Monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus) has formed on the farm of Lorene and Robert Miller of Plain City, Ohio. There are least a thousand butterflies, and at least on peak days, probably a lot more.

I'll post a more detailed story about this phenomenon later, but for now, here's two images from last night's visit.

Dozens of Monarchs cloak a favored maple. This was just the tip of the lepidopteran iceberg.

A Monarch rests atop a Norway spruce. A small windbreak of these trees is also a favored nighttime roost.

PHOTO NOTES: An issue for photographers with photographing this roost at its maximum glory is light. Many of the butterflies do not come in until the sun has nearly set, and some are still returning after the sun has set. Thus, in the shady environs of the silver maple above, which is also blocked from the sun by the spruce windbreak, ISO levels can and do rise to very high levels at prime time, even with lenses wide open and shutter speeds as low as one can reasonably manage.

To combat this problem, I used the amazing Canon 200mm f/2 lens for the roost shots. The second image of the Monarch in gorgeous late day light perched on a spruce, was made with the Canon 400mm f/4 DO II. Light was no issue there. But it certainly was around the maple tree. For those images, I shot the 200mm lens wide open at f/2, and as slow as 1/60 second (the lens also has superb image stabilization which greatly improves one's ability to handhold). For the image above, my settings were f/2, 1/100, and ISO 2500. That kind of ISO, while higher than I would prefer, is processed well by the Canon R5. Also, I was able to compose images such that very little, or no cropping was necessary. A bit of noise reduction via Photoshop later, and all looks good. Some photogs around me were reporting ISO's as high as 25,600 by the time I made this image, and most had stopped shooting by then.

While wildlife photographers might not have a lot of use for a relatively short focal range 200mm lens, it is worth its weight in gold at times due to that huge f/2 aperture. This lens is also almost eerily sharp, even wide open. I just tried to find a situation where as many butterflies as possible in the center of the composition were pretty much in the same plane and focused on those. Then, let the chips fall where they may. I personally love the look that this bokeh monster creates at open apertures (and even when stopped way down).