Monkey Puzzle

Monkey Puzzle I am referring to, is neither the political game which our politicians play, nor any other game I am trying to promote. That afternoon I was teaching my 10 year old daughter Neethi few basics of photography when she spotted a small butterfly with several tail filaments sitting on a crape jasmine bush. That butterfly is called Monkey Puzzle (Rathinda amor). My daughter wanted to try her hand on macro photography. I removed the flash and diffuser and just gave her my Canon EOS 1D Mark IV fitted with Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM lens to try. Weight of this rig is too much to her tiny hands and she struggled to hold the weight. Nevertheless she managed to capture the butterfly quite successfully. Here is the photo she captured.

Monkey Puzzle

After she tried her hand, I wanted to take the similar shot. The butterfly was very cooperative. Here is my humble effort. As both of us were not using flash we had to push the ISO to 3200 to get aperture f/13 and speed of 1/200th second. Unfortunately the plant on which this butterfly was sitting was so awkward, that it allowed me only two good positions to take photos.

Monkey Puzzle

Later I connected my Canon Speedlite 580EX II with ExpoImaging Ray Flash Adapter. This gave me good light with which I could reduce the ISO to 100. The extra light from the flash allows you to extract a greater clarity from the picture by using lower ISO. The Monkey Puzzle, Rathinda amor is a small lycaenid or blue butterfly found in Western Ghats, South Indian plains, Orissa and Ganjam districts to Calcutta. Assam. Sri Lanka.

Monkey Puzzle

Its sexes alike. Wingspan – 26 to 28 mm. Upper side of this butterfly is dark brown. It has a white-spot end cell. It has narrow white spots on 2 and 3 which form a short band on the fore wing. On the UPH it has two black tornal spots and narrow dark reddish spot above them. The underside is white to dark yellowish brown. Fore wing has irregular dark basal markings with a curved white discal line. The apical two-fifths are a rich dark brown color. The hind wing has a silvery margin with many irregular black lines and spots within. It has three tails, being 2 mm, 6 mm and 2.5 mm in length.

Monkey Puzzle

This butterfly is found in jungle areas of moderate to heavy rainfall – both, in heavy forest and scrub. The butterfly occurs below 900 meters or so. It keeps to undergrowth and can be seen along forest paths and in clearings. The butterfly has a weak flight, it stays low and does not fly for long without alighting. Its method of alighting is interesting – as soon as it lands, it turns around and waggles its tail filaments, it also sidesteps for a while – all this is apparently to confuse a predator as to which side is the head. This is a likely reason that the first naturalists may have named the species the Monkey Puzzle. The butterfly has a number of food plants from families Rubiaceae, Dipterocarpeae, Euphorbiaceae, Loranthaceae, Sapindaceae and Myrtaceae. In my garden I found it was feeding on Ixora.

Leafhopper

Soon after the Mysore trip I sold both my Canon EOS 5D Mark II and Canon EOS 7D camera bodies and purchased Canon EOS 1D Mark IV. I needed a camera which included the features of 5D Mark II & 7D and 1D Mark IV fitted that slot correctly. As Canon puts it in its press statement about EOS-1D Mark IV is a high-speed, professional Digital SLR (DSLR) camera designed to empower photographers to capture split-second moments in high resolution, under the most challenging of conditions. Ideal for shooting action, sports, news events and wildlife photography, the Canon EOS-1D Mark IV delivers speed, power and high-resolution images, creating the perfect camera for photographers who require reliability in fast-paced, high-pressure situations.

EOS-1D Mark IV features a new Canon 16.1MP APS-H CMOS sensor and a brand new 45-point Auto Focus (AF) system with 39 f/2.8 sensitive cross-type points, providing a wide selection of precise focus areas across the frame. Dual DIGIC 4 processors provide the power to shoot continuous, high-resolution images at up to 10 frames per second (fps), as well as delivering the widest ISO range ever to feature in a Canon camera. I am not going to review this camera as it is reviewed at so many sites on internet.

Leafhopper

I found this Leafhopper at my house main door on friday the 13th afternoon. Nothing ominous about this insect though. This is a small 3mm long insect. Leafhopper is a common name applied to any species from the family Cicadellidae. Leafhoppers, colloquially known as hoppers, are minute plant-feeding insects. I could not get any species identification as there are over 20,000 species of Cicadellidae world wide. Leafhoppers are found all over the world, and constitute the second-largest hemipteran family.

I used Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro lens on Canon EOS 1D Mark IV with Canon Speedlite 580EX II flash fitted with ExpoImaging Ray Flash Adapter. Leafhopper was on the door and allowed me to reach close to 1:1 magnification before jumping off. Light from the adapter was somewhat harsh on the glossy wings. I wanted to change angle of flash and try again to avoid the reflection on the wings, but insect jumped away. On Adobe Lightroom during post processing I tried several methods to reduce the harsh highlight on the wings, what really succeeded was the Luminance slider from the HSL group. Check the detailed tutorial on that method here – Lightroom – Recover Highlights, Overexposure, and Colors from RAW

Leafhopper

Leafhoppers have piercing-sucking mouthparts, enabling them to feed on plant sap. A leafhoppers’ diet commonly consists of sap from a wide and diverse range of plants, but some are more host-specific. Leafhoppers mainly are herbivores, but some are known to eat smaller insects, such as aphids, on occasion. A few species are known to be mud-puddling, but as it seems, females rarely engage in such behavior. Leafhoppers can transmit plant pathogens, such as viruses, phytoplasmas and bacteria.

Cicadellidae species that are significant agricultural pests include the beet leafhopper (Circulifer tenellus), potato leafhopper (Empoasca fabae), two-spotted leafhopper (Sophonia rufofascia), glassy-winged sharpshooter (Homalodisca vitripennis), the common brown leafhopper (Orosius orientalis) and white apple leafhopper (Typhlocyba pomaria).

Asian Koel Female with Thevetia peruviana seed in the mouth

In my earlier blog I had written about Asian Koel (Eudynamys scolopaceus). I had another close encounter with this common bird in our kitchen garden. As I was planing to go to my clinic on that day I saw a pair of Juvenile Asian Koels sitting on the Yellow Oleander plant. I quickly grabbed my Canon EF 300mm f/2.8 L IS USM lens which was fitted on Canon EOS 7D and went out to photograph these pair. My choice of lens for that situation turned a wrong one. I was too close to the bird. It was as though doing a macro shoot of the bird. Canon EF 300mm f/2.8 L is not a good macro lens. The closest it can focus is around 2.5 meters giving a 0.13x magnification. If I was on 70-200mm then it would have been better.

Asian Koel Male

9:40 AM light was quite harsh which you can notice by the overexposed highlight on the shoulder of the bird. If i had under exposed then the bird would have rendered dark. This is why we prefer the golden light of the early morning or late evening which gives a nicer mellow light with lower contrast. Cloudy days are boon to photographers as the sky becomes a large lightbox. Rule of thumb is if shadows are not very dark then the light is nice for good photography.

Asian Koel Female Ruffled

They were also squabbling among themselves for the fruit and just looked playful. Male who was on the ground noticed my presence first and flew away, but the female did not notice me and gave quite a few poses before realizing that she is being photographed and flying off.

Asian Koel Female Threatening the Male

Both the birds were busy eating the fruit of yellow oleander (Thevetia peruviana) which are toxic to mammals. Thevetia peruviana is a plant native to central and southern Mexico and Central America. It is a close relative of Nerium oleander, giving it one common name as Yellow Oleander, and is also called lucky nut, Captain Cook Nut in the West Indies.

Asian Koel Female

Thevetia peruviana is an evergreen tropical shrub or small tree. Its leaves are willow-like, linear-lanceolate, and glossy green in colour. They are covered in waxy coating to reduce water loss (typical of oleanders). Its stem is green turning silver/gray as it ages.

Asian Koel Female

Flowers bloom from summer to fall. The long funnel-shaped sometimes-fragrant yellow (less commonly apricot) flowers are in few-flowered terminal clusters. Its fruit is deep red—black in color encasing a large seed that bears some resemblance to a ‘Chinese lucky nut.’ Thevetia peruviana contains a milky sap containing a compound called thevetin that is used as a heart stimulant but in its natural form is extremely poisonous, as are all parts of the plants, especially the seeds.

Asian Koel Female

Thevetia peruviana is cultivated as an ornamental plant, and planted as large flowering shrub or small ornamental tree standards in gardens and parks in temperate climates.
Thevetia peruviana inhibited spermatogenesis in rats, indicating the possibility of developing a herbal male contraceptive.

Asian Koel Female

Thevetia peruviana plants are toxic to most vertebrates as they contain cardiac glycosides. Many cases of intentional and accidental poisoning of humans are known. Only a few bird species are however known to feed on them without any ill effects. These include the Asian Koel, Red-whiskered Bulbul, White-browed Bulbul, Red-vented Bulbul, Brahminy Myna, Common Myna and Common Grey Hornbill.