Bugs Butterflies & Blooms

[tonyturley]

There are a lot of things I like about this time of year, and one of them is the proliferation of late wildflowers along every stream, culvert, and disturbed spot. My wife and I stopped at a day use recreation area near Thurmond, WV, all the way in the bottom of the New River Gorge. It was a day where the weather was perfect; sunny with the right amount of clouds, plenty of shade along the river, a sweet cooling breeze blowing in off the water, spectacular scenery - and the place was deserted. We saw a few vehicles drive past on the narrow road, but we had the place to ourselves. Right across the river is the tiny restored industrial-era town of Thurmond, and I recall seeing only one vehicle when we were over there.

There were vast amounts of wildflowers and an untold number of butterflies along the river and around the road frontage. Here are some images from the X30:

 

[Britanica]

It has been some time since I seen butterflies like this. In my area, most days I don't even see one. I think this was because of the drought. Either way, beautiful pictures

 

[MoonMind]

Reviving an old thread of Tony's ...

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M.

 

[MiguelATF]

Am once again, reviving this old Butterflies & Blooms thread which Tony started a few moons ago. My entry, glimpsed on the last day of March, is of a butterfly which I believe to be a Lycaena cupreus cupreus - aka a Lustrous Copper butterfly - which was fluttering about a blooming wild plum tree (that was also being visited by dozens of industrious honeybees).
In the first photo I got of it, its wings were closed - revealing a camouflage woodlands 'look'--

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But in the 2nd photo, it partially opened its wings, and suddenly I had to put on my dark glasses to protect my eyes from the amazing copperish glow of its coloration---

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As an obvious side note, the Zeiss zoom lens on the Sony RX10M3 is really quite a fine tool for this kind of photography.