The Copper Collection!

This blog is a week away from our third year anniversary. Never would have thought it would last this long. One post on yard art has seen 2900 visits  and we have had 4550 comments thus far!

Any way I wanted to share some of my butterfly photo collection, I have been photographing butterflies since the fall of 1997. Here are an assortment of all the different copper species I have photographed. Coppers are limited in the eastern US to a few species, in the western US there are lots of different coppers.

American Copper, Lycaena phlaeas (above and below)

This copper is the only one we have in North Carolina. I once found a field that I estimated seeing 200 of these beauties, been back several time only to find a few butterflies.

Bronze Copper, Lycaena hyllus (male photo above and below)

The above photo graces the front cover of a book "Butterflies of Ohio" I took this photo with a point and shoot camera G5 way back in 2002! You will also note that the way the sunlight hits these butterflies changes the iridescence of the butterfly. As the butterfly ages it looses scales and the iridescence. 

 I know a few locations along the Ohio River near Cincinnati, Ohio and Huntington West Virginia to find these large beautiful coppers.

Bronze Copper, Lycaena hyllus (female above photo)

Purplish Copper, Lycaena helloides (male above, unknown sex below)

These are pretty common in the western United States, I found them often on my adventures, they are very busy and hard to photograph.

Edith's Copper, Lycaena editha (female above and below)

This was the only Edith's Copper I saw in Colorado, it was quick and my camera buddies with me missed seeing it. Likely my favorite copper butterfly.

Gray Copper, Lycaena dione (above photo)

I've only seen this one Gray Copper, it was exciting to find and I wished I'd gotten better photos of it.

Ruddy Copper, Lycaena rubidus (above photo)

The real beauty of these coppers is when the wings are open, you can just see a hint of the copper colored wings on the butterfly on the left. This was the only ruddies I saw on the Colorado trip and I missed getting better photos of it.

 Blue Copper, Lycaena heteronea (female above) 

I found this in the Rockies in Colorado back in July of 2005.

 Blue Copper, Lycaena heteronea (male above and below)
This is why these are called Blue Coppers. Even with all I know about butterflies seeing one of these males on the ground with the wings open I would instantly think it was a blue butterfly.

Meg and I started taking stained glass classes on Tuesday nights. It looks to be a lot of fun, though I already knew how to cut glass, which was the focus of our first class. I set up a table in the basement to be our art studio for now. The basement is not heated and glass cuts much better when it is warm. Here is a first look at my first stained glass project, still a lot to learn.

The cobalt blue glass is going to be used in 2, 3, 5 and 6. Now if I only had a glass grinder. Choosing glass seems to be the hardest part. I plan on eventually making my own designs from some of my butterfly, dragonfly and flower photos.