Female Plain Tiger

I had written long back on Plain tiger (Danaus chrysippus) butterfly. At that time I was using Canon EF 400mm f/5.6 L USM with 36mm of extension tube to photograph this Plain Tiger butterfly. Soon after the Scarlet Skimmer dragonfly photograph session which I published last week, I spotted a female plain tiger butterfly nearby. I used the same setup as I used in the dragonfly photography. My rig consisted of 1D Mark IV camera with Canon EF 300mm f/2.8L + 1.4x tele-converter stabilized on a monopod. Beautiful evening sun gave me plenty of golden light to experiment around this butterfly. It was not at all shy in posing for me as was evident in the photos which is one of the great advantages of using a long telephoto lens for closeup shoots.

Female Plain Tiger Under Side View

As I photographed I noticed that the butterfly had a wound on the thorax at the base of the right hind-wing. The Plain Tiger is protected from attacks due to the unpalatable alkaloids ingested during the larval stages. The larvae pf this butterfly feed on host plants like milkweeds (like Asclepias, Calotropis) which are have toxic alkaloids. The butterfly therefore flies slowly and leisurely, generally close to the ground and in a straight line. This gives a would-be predator ample time to recognize and avoid attacking it. Inexperienced predators will try attacking it, but will learn soon enough to avoid this butterfly as the alkaloids in its body cause vomiting. The butterfly I was photographing also must have escaped such an attack on it.

Female Plain Tiger Side View

It was an old wound, the lymph had accumulated and clotted around the right side of the thorax. Even though injured the butterfly was flying normally and was resting like any other of its kind. Tenacity of this butterfly was amazing. The butterfly also has a tough, leathery skin to survive such occasional attacks. When attacked it fakes death and oozes nauseating liquid which makes it smell and taste terrible. This encourages the predator to release the butterfly quickly. The Plain Tiger thus has the ability to recover “miraculously” from predator attacks that would kill most other butterflies.

Female Plain Tiger Upper Side

Even though a macro lens and a flash setup is ideal to get extremely closeup photos of these butterflies, my tele-macro setup works nice. Drawback of this setup is that it needs a good light and is heavy and cumbersome. So it is not very portable. With that setup I can take quite a good amount of closeup shots with a very creamy bokeh effect. I can also using the same setup photograph birds and other distant object which is a real bonus as the same rig works as dual purpose setup.

Female Plain Tiger Closeup

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.

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.