Mating Trouble

After photographing Female Plain Tiger, I was in the hunt for the Male Plain Tiger. As the Plain Tiger is known to be parasitized at least occasionally by Spiroplasma bacteria which selectively kill off male hosts, a subsequent scarcity of Plain Tiger males might have led to this hybridization and the evolution of the new … Read more

Female Plain Tiger

Female Plain Tiger Under Side View

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. … Read more

Monkey Puzzle

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. … Read more

Macro Photography Tips

Last Sunday during the Photo walk I had given a short talk on Macro photography. Preparing for the talk I jotted down several tips. I thought I will compile all of them into an article which will be useful for all my viewers. So here it is in much expanded form than during the photo … Read more

Chocolate Albatross

Monsoon had just begun. It was late evening. Through the incessant drizzle I noticed a small yellow brown butterfly sheltering on the bi-lobed leaves of Malabar Bauhinia(Bauhinia malabarica). On closer inspection it turned out to be a male Chocolate Albatross butterfly (Appias lyncida). I wanted to take a closeup photo but it was impossible with … Read more

Psyched

Death in the domain of the insects can be swift and cruel but retains a magnificence and beauty that is somehow at odds with the brutality of what is happening. Today rain had subsided a little. I wanted to photograph Psyche (Leptosia nina) butterfly which was flying around those tiny pinkish flowers which I couldn’t … Read more