Onegav

The cinnabar moth (Tyria jacobaeae) is a brightly coloured arctiidmoth found in Europe and western and central Asia. It has been introduced into New Zealand, Australia and North America to control ragwort, on which its larvae feed. The moth is named after the red mineral cinnabar because of the red patches on its predominantly black wings. Cinnabar moths are about 20 mm (0.79 in) long and have a wingspan of 32–42 mm (1.3–1.7 in)

– Thank you, Wikipedia!

Today after picking the girls up from a trip out with my sister, we headed off to a local spot none of us have been to before; however due to a road closure and time ticking on, we still haven’t been.

I’m hoping, we will find some amazing views at this spot, but for now I’m going to remain a little grey on where and what it is, until I can share the photographs with you.

So, a little down but not out, we headed home to have a BBQ in the last of the suns rays.

As I opened the car door, I whispered to everyone “wait, no-body move!”, to which everyone froze….

I’d spotted a little butterfly on the drive way, or at least I thought it was a butterfly at the time.

I took the shots above, and the girls could wait to see it no longer, and they climbed out of the car to have a look.

To my amazement, the butterfly didn’t fly off when the girls huddled around it to have a closer look, it just sat there cool as a cucumber.

Livvy wanted to hold it, but wasn’t overly keen, Izzy however has no fear of anything in this world, and she loves all animals so she held it.

I gently let it climb onto my finger, and put Izzy’s hand next to mine and let it crawl onto her tiny paw.

She was amazed!

She was so mesmerised by it she totally forgot about the stack of biscuits she was clutching in her other hand, for the moment anyway.

Learnings – today’s shot taught me a lot about depth of field, I haven’t until now seen it so clearly in front and behind my subject. In today’s main picture I clearly set the depth too shallow, as the whole moth isn’t fully in focus, and I was amazed to see how narrow the depth of field actually could go.