Tag: photography blog

Raising a Comma Butterfly

On By ArtyMissKIn Conservation, Photography, Raising Butterflies4 Comments

Hey friends! 

This week I’ve got a bonus butterfly tale for you, I’m really very excited about this one!!

Over the last couple of months I’ve been raising a grand total of 61 Red Admiral butterflies and during that time I’ve dug up many, many nettle plants for them to eat. When they start to pupate I like to add a fresh plant or two so that when they emerge there is a nice, new host plant for them to (hopefully) lay more eggs on.

At one point I had 6 Red ads pupating in a house of their own and after a few days I noticed the nettle I had prepared for them was being eaten, well, it turned out to have an occupant! One lone Comma caterpillar was quite happily eating its way through my new nettle.

Comma (Polygonia c-album) is another of our native butterflies, its one of the quirkiest looking ones we have here. They have scalloped wing edges which with the dark markings on the undersides of its wings camouflage it to resemble a dead leaf! 

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Ore Stained Landscape {One frame}

On By ArtyMissKIn Photography

Hello my Friends!

I’ve got a new One frame to share with you this week, I recently spent the day at a place called Wheal fortune – which is an old Cornish mining sight used for mining copper and tin up until the 1880’s. 

Anyway, its been an age since I posted a landscape shot (as opposed to a tree shot) and this was such an amazing setting to be in. The mining systems in Cornwall are incredible – this is actually where the pollutants washed away and seeing how the ores have stained the landscape through human activity is weirdly heavy on the soul.

It does however make a beautiful landscape to photograph – it kinda reminds me of a Bob Ross painting (he was an oil painter in the 80/90’s and an all round nice guy) he liked to paint happy little trees…I’m very much of the opinion of in life always try to be a bit like Bob Ross!

I love the layers of this image, there’s the reflective water, the red/orange stained rocks which moves into the bright and rich tones of green and a moody sky. The views of the whole site were both amazing and horrific – its comes as a shock when you see how we (as humans) are willing to destroy the landscape in search of metals and the damage it leaves behind.

That’s it for this week, I hope you like the little slice of landscape serenity. How is the weather where you are? Next weeks post is shaping up to be a new surprise Butterfly tale! 

Thank you so much for reading this post, and I wish you a prosperous week ahead!

Raising Red Admiral Butterflies

On By ArtyMissKIn Conservation, Photography, Raising Butterflies2 Comments

Hey friends! I’ve got a new Butterfly tale to share with you, as over the last couple of months I’ve been raising a troupe of super friendly common garden butterflies.

Red Admirals (Vanessa atalanta) are a quick flying regular migrant to these shores and beginning each Spring flocks of Red ads travel northwards from North Africa and mainland Europe. The females that arrive here lay their eggs on common ol’ stinging nettle and from July onwards we have these lovelies to look at…although they overwinter here as well, and I saw them in the area from as early as February.

I love these butterflies they are so pretty and always happy to pose for photos if I’m quiet enough. This year I was lucky enough to find a few little batches of eggs on some of the purpose grown nettles in the garden and I fostered just a small amount of them (literally just a single leaf) and moved them into my butterfly house. Before digging them up a fresh nettle to live on.

Which is a bit weird when I think about it now.

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Magnificent Forest Dweller {One frame}

On By ArtyMissKIn Photography6 Comments

Hello my Friends!

Can you believe it, we’ve already six days into September?! Before too long the Christmas decorations will be up and we’ll be singing carols!

Anyway, I thought I’d share one of my favourite trees with you this week in a new One Frame. I genuinely think trees are one of the best things about our planet, they do so much for our eco systems and are so easily overlooked or destroyed. This particular one is on one of my favourite hikes in a little out of the way place called Saint Breward. 

Its old and gnarly with so many stout branches snaking off in all directions. I love that at some point someone decided to try and make a swing…although I think its was quite a while ago.

One of the things I love about tree-watching is trying to find faces in them and I’ve stared long enough at this one to convince myself that it does have a face (at least eyes and a nose anyway). I also think it would be perfect for a treehouse.

It won’t be long before all of its lovely green leaves turn brown and litter the ground for the long dark of winter.

But it will still be a beautiful tree.

I hope you like this little slice of tree-ish heaven as much as I do, can you see the face in the tree? Thank you so much for reading this post, and have a lovely, nature filled week!

Raising Peacock Butterflies

On By ArtyMissKIn Conservation, Photography, Raising Butterflies3 Comments

Hey friends! I’ve been a day behind all week and woke up convinced today was Friday only to discover that not only is it Saturday but also August 3rd (when did that happen!!)

So today I’m (belatedly) posting my first Butterfly tale of 2024!

As over the last couple of months I’ve been raising a little group of one of the prettiest common garden butterflies we get in the UK.

Peacock (Aglais io) are a beautiful red butterfly with giant eye spots (apparently these confuse predators) that seems to be around at all times of the year and is one of our bigger butterflies. The females lay their eggs on common ol’ stinging nettle in May and we have these lovelies to look at about two months later. Something I find amazing is that the females will lay all of their eggs at once which can be up to 500 eggs!!

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Fleeting thought #5 {new tech & random photos}

On By ArtyMissKIn Fleeting thoughts, Photography2 Comments

Hello my friends, 

Welcome back…How ya doing? I actually meant to post this a couple of weeks ago but life got in the way.

So, this is the fifth Fleeting Thought its been like a couple of months since the last one and I kinda feel I need a drum roll to start this post off…ready…I’ve finally taken the plunge and upgraded my camera!! Which is super exciting!!! Sadly my trusty L340 gave up on me, so this post is a little bit of my feelings and a tiny (sort of) review mixed with some random photography experiments.

Lets do this…

I haven’t felt the need to upgrade my camera before and have used my faithful Nikon Coolpix L340 since it was released – I’ve always liked how easy it is to use and the photo quality is pretty good (unless you try to zoom too far) but it never really let me down…I must’ve taken over 100,000 photographs with it!

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Old Forest Tunnel {One frame}

On By ArtyMissKIn Photography4 Comments

Hey Friends!

I’ve got a new One Frame to share with you this week, I recently came across this old tunnel, which runs under a no longer used railway…isn’t it the coolest thing!

Something I’ve always wanted to do was take a photograph from one end of a tunnel looking towards the other end (don’t know why its just one of those random moments on my photography wish-list) and this tunnel was perfect! It had stalagmites and ivy and smelled strongly of bat, but was so pretty…weirdly it was sunny at the far end but raining where I was standing.

It felt pretty magical, and I couldn’t help but imagine Middle Earth was waiting at the other end!!

So yeah, that’s it for this week, remember the light at the end of the tunnel isn’t always a fire. Hopefully next weeks post is either gonna be a new embroidered butterfly or possibly a Fleeting Thought. 

Thank you so much for reading this post, and I wish you a prosperous week ahead!

Pearl-bordered Fritillary {One frame}

On By ArtyMissKIn Photography

Hello my friends! 

This week I’ve got a new butterfly one frame and I’m super excited to share it with you, I recently went on a flight survey day with Butterfly Conservation with the aim of recording how many Pearl-bordered fritillaries we could find!

In reality we were eight grown-ups wondering around a place called Pendirft bottom on Bodmin moor, either up to our knees in dead bracken or ankle deep in boggy mud…it was awesome!! The views were spectacular, there were deer in the distance, I even found a slow-worm!

All in all we spotted about 25 of these endangered little guys over the five hours we were there (which apparently made it a pretty good year!) and I was totally thrilled to get a few really good shots of one of the butterflies that was a) in focus b) a decent composition and c) in focus. It was fairly close to the end of the day and I think he (or she) must’ve thought this weirdo with the camera has been following us all day, best give her a break and sit still. 

I love how it has blue/grey eyes in contrast to the rest of its being.

A pearl-bordered fritillary was a first for me and the patterns on its underwing were beautiful!! I really like how bright it seems in relation to the dead, dry bracken, plus the light was perfect.

I really hope you like this photo and that my butterfly filled posts spread a little bit of happiness. I’m definitely feeling like making an embroidered one of these! As always thanks for reading and have a wonderful nature filled week!

Speckled Wood butterfly {One frame}

On By ArtyMissKIn Photography2 Comments

Hey friends! 

I’ve got a little one frame to share with you this week, lets be honest it wasn’t going to be long before butterflies took over the theme of my posts again was it! I was actually planning to post some new bug illustrations I’ve been working on but this little guy (or girl) fluttered into the garden a couple of days ago.

Continue reading “Speckled Wood butterfly {One frame}” →