07/02/12 Featured Arkansas Photography–Monarch in the Boxley Valley

Monarch Butterfly working in the Boxley Valley

Taken with a Canon 5D MKII, 100-400 Zoom lens @ 300mm, F11, iso 100, with image stabilization. On this day I was up in the Boxley valley to photograph the 5 tame swans that tend to populate the old mill pond.  For some reason on this day the swans were nowhere to be found, but as I was walking around in the scrub bushes, I found a group of Monarch butterflies that were working a plant at the edge of the pond.  I still don’t know what this plant is, but they were all over it.  In fact they were so interested in the plant, that they let me get within 4 feet of them before spooking.  I spent over an hour photographing them and most of the wait was on good light.  That day the sun kept going behind the clouds.