Marbled White Butterflies Part 1

Each summer I like to pay a visit to Ryton Wood Meadows, a Butterfly Conservation reserve that is especially good for Marbled White butterflies (note that the site is for members only).  I always enjoy photographing Marbled Whites and their absence from sites closer to home necessitates a one hour drive. This means an early start is required in order to arrive on site before the butterflies have warmed up too much.

This year I actually made 2 visits as the first, in early July, was on a particularly warm, sunny day and the butterflies were on the wing within around 45 minutes of my 6:00 AM arrival. On the plus side, the early morning sunshine provided very attractive light conditions during that short period. The second visit in mid July was on a much cooler, grey day. This meant more co-operative butterflies but less attractive light. Nothing's ever simple is it?!

The following were my favourite images from the first visit. The images from the second visit will form a later blog post.

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The first 4 images were taken with an Olympus OM-D E-M1 with Olympus 60mm macro lens:

This final image was taken with a Canon 60D and Tokina 35mm macro lens: