2nd: Orange tip butterfly egg hatching

2nd: Orange tip butterfly egg hatching, Bancroft. Paul Lund

Orange tip butterflies lay eggs on the Hedge garlic in my garden every year. Shortly before the egg hatches it changes colour from orange to transparent and the caterpillar can be seen, complete with black hairs. I had picked the plant stem and put it in a bottle of water in the conservatory on a table. I set up the camera, Nikon D800s and lens Laowa 25mm 2.5 – 5x f2.8 Macro on a tripod. Lighting was from two Kuangren KX-800 twin lights. These have the flash heads on flexible arms allowing excellent adjustment. The egg started to hatch about 10pm, much earlier than my previous attempt at 1.30am, which hatched when I wasn’t looking. I took a series of photos and after the caterpillar had hatched, a spider, which was hiding in the flower, came down and took it!