closeup photos on Flickr

When I was a little boy, the butterfly in the photo above was an almost mythical creature to me. It was so rare, that I seem to remember most people I knew excitedly shouting "A SWALLOWTAIL! A SWALLOWTAIL" if they happened to spot one, and we kids would come running for a chance to see this unicorn of the insect world with our own eyes.

Granted, for 5-year old me "most people I knew" probably consisted of my parents and siblings plus a few kids and the kindergarten teacher, but what is certainly true is that unlike with more common butterflies, a visit from this elusive beauty would not go unnoticed and rarely unmentioned. The swallowtail was important - I knew that much.

A couple of years later, when I was maybe six or seven years old, I learned that the swallowtail belonged to the family of the „Ritterfalter“ (that is the German name for the Papilionidae) which translates to „knight butterflies“. Now this new knowledge really fueled my imagination: so the swallowtail was a knight!

There were only three butterfly species present in Switzerland that had been granted a knighthood - the other two being Sir Scarce Swallowtail and Sir Apollo - and since the (old world) swallowtail was the most beautiful, it was certainly the most valiant and probably sat at the head of the knights’ table; heck, in my mind it was practically the Sir Lancelot of the butterfly world!

Now you might chuckle at the notion that this insect - which may seem like "just another butterfly" to people who live in countries with a large and colorful insect fauna - made this much of an impression on me. But such exotic looking creatures (ANY exotic looking animals) were practically non-existent where I lived.

I grew up in a very rural area of Switzerland outside the city of Zurich during the late seventies and eighties, and although things would get worse in the 90s (before they got better in the 2000s with the boom of organic farming), intense agriculture had already taken a terrible toll on the biodiversity of the open grass land around our little village.

Most crucially for the swallowtail, the once abundant wild carrot - which is the plant the caterpillars of Papilio machaon most commonly feed on in northern Switzerland - had nearly disappeared from our fields and meadows, so the species relied on fennel and carrot plants in private vegetable gardens for its survival. Sadly, those were few and far between, and by the time I grew up, the swallowtail had gone all but extinct in our area.

My desperate attempts to help it out and lure it into our garden (well, mom did all the work by planting carrot seeds at my insistence) remained futile; regardless how meticulously I searched every plant, to my great disappointment I never found a single caterpillar nor even so much as a tiny swallowtail egg.

But there was one place where I could rely on encountering this rarest and most gorgeous of butterflies - and also many other fantastical creatures that were the stuff of legend for the little nature nerd I was (well, I guess still am 😊 ). This was a magical place that lay on the other side of a gigantic mountain, and it could only be accessed through a dark tunnel that would go on for miles and miles and miles (ten, to be exact).

One could enter in winter and come out in spring; on one side there might be snow several feet high while on the other side warm sunshine would illuminate lush green fields that, after a further 30-minutes drive in the family car, would give way to gardens with palm trees.

This was a fantasy land from a fairy tale, where people grew peaches and lemons and figs in their gardens, giant beetles grew antlers like stags, snakes grew to a length of six feet, and colorful lizards basked on the walls of peculiar and ancient looking little stone houses, while exotic seeming insects and spiders (and even scorpions) populated the fields and forests.

This place (as you might have guessed) wasn't Hogwarts: it was Ticino, the Italian speaking southern part of Switzerland. And since it lay on the other side of the Alps, we would usually drive through the 10-mile (16.9 kilometers) Gotthard road tunnel to get there, and it was indeed quite common that there would still be snow covering the north entry in early March, while on the southern end of the tunnel spring had already arrived.

I knew that this land of seemingly endless sunshine was where my grandparents had grown up, but to little-boy me it might as well have been Hogwarts (although the Harry Potter books obviously hadn't yet been written back then 😉 ). Driving to Ticino through this endless appearing tunnel was nothing short of a trip to another world.

What further added to the magic was that our vacation home was a several-hundred year old "rustico" (that's what the ancient, traditionally built stone houses are called in Ticino) that was located like some long forgotten stronghold in the midst of a wild, jungle-like forest in a remote area of the Verzasca valley. The place - which belonged to my uncle (who never went there) - was completely off-grid and had its own power supply from solar panels on the roof and fresh water from a nearby spring.

With no neighbors around that we could bother - and armed with a deep trust in fate (which was kinda typical for the "baby-boomer" generation) that we kids would neither fall from a cliff, drown in the river, get bitten by a venomous snake, get lost in the woods, NOR go feral and start a savage little Lord-Of-The-Flies style cult - our parents let us roam free.

To me this meant I went exploring the untamed nature around me for as long as there was daylight. I wanted to know and see every creature that lived in the area; it was like going on a gemstone hunt. And the bounty would always be plentiful: there were snakes and lizards and stag beetles and mantises and giant caterpillars of hawk moths to be found, but the big price - the crown jewel if you will - was the swallowtail.

For here the "winged knight" still ruled supreme, and even though it didn't exist in large numbers, I would always find at least one a day on some little meadow in the forest. Because swallowtails are so much bigger than the more common butterflies, I could easily spot it from afar, and just like the one in the photo above (taken in my garden in Ticino this past spring), I would usually find Sir Papilio Machaon sipping nectar from the flowers of red clover.

These swallowtail hunts in the wild Verzasca valley were marvelous adventures (though in hindsight they were probably more than just a little dangerous), and to this day they're among my favorite childhood memories.

A lot has changed in the nearly forty years that have since gone by; parents who let their kids roam free all day long in untamed forests are certainly a thing of the past in Switzerland (my own generation seems to have a hard time letting their kids go ANYwhere unsupervised - except perhaps for the internet 😉 ). But what has remained the same is my fascination with these gorgeous insects.

And there's some good news: I'm happy to report that the swallowtail has bounced back a little in many parts of northern Switzerland. It's still one of the rarest butterflies, but nowadays I consistently find the cute, characteristically striped caterpillars on the carrot plants in my parents' vegetable garden year after year, and every once in a while I'm even greeted by a "winged knight" in person when I take a stroll across the fields and meadows of my youth.

As for Ticino; well, I now have my own little house there (also a "rustico", but in the less remote Malcantone region) with a tiny garden attached, and every year I make sure to do everything in my power to accommodate Sir (or Dame) Swallowtail on my premises (also read: www.lacerta-bilineata.com/post/how-to-attract-a-swallowta... - and with great success I might add :-)

During the warmer months, this gorgeous Papilionidae species regales me with its knightly presence nearly every day, and I still make a run for my camera each time I get a visit - even though Sir Lancelot of the butterfly world is a nightmare to photograph.

Knighthood or not, this is one nervous fella that constantly jumps and flutters around on the flowers he likes to visit, which tends to drive a certain (now fully grown) nature nerd and wannabe-photographer to the brink of insanity on a regular basis.

Thankfully though, by now my neighbors are used to the (embarrassingly frequent) frustrated shouts and bouts of swearing coming from my garden (I imagine them just rolling their eyes and saying: "Great, there's a butterfly in his garden again..." 😂 ).

And with this (as always far too lengthy) anecdote I'll leave you for now and say goodbye to 2023:

😊❤🎉💕 - HAPPY NEW YEAR my friends!!! - 😊❤🎉💕

All the best - and the best of light - to you in 2024 and beyond! And as always: let me know what you think in the comments (even though it will take me a while to respond, but I promise I will). 🙏 😊 ❤

Mr. DeMille by Crystal Pierce

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"All right, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up"

Great Egret Closeup by Sharp AF Photography

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Hornet Closeup by Lacerta Bilineata

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European hornet closeup (Vespa crabro), 10-2022, Ticino, Switzerland

My best photos are here: www.lacerta-bilineata.com/ticino-best-photos-of-southern-...

European hornet (Vespa crabro), 10-2022, Ticino, Switzerland

If you're interested, you can find my best photos of the WILDLIFE IN TICINO, SWITZERLAND here: fr.lacerta-bilineata.com/l%C3%A9zard-vert-occidental-lace...

THE STORY BEHIND THE PHOTO:

I guess you can tell by the look on its face that this is not a happy hornet. That's not unusual for hornets - truth be told, variations of "not happy" "angry", or at least "badly irritated" seem to be pretty much their natural state of mind - but what's interesting about the fella above is that he also wasn't exactly sober.

To spell it out more clearly: that was one hammered hornet. It was so drunk in fact, it couldn't fly for two seconds straight without crashing. I shot that photo in my garden last fall, but as with all my pictures, I'll try to give you a bit more context.

Every year at least one hornet queen decides that some crack or hole inside the thick stone walls of my 400-year old house in Ticino is the perfect place to raise her royal family.

That in itself wouldn't pose a problem, but if there's one thing we know about "royals", it's that they're a complicated bunch (though it has to be said for both princes William and Harry that they rarely build little palaces inside the walls of some stranger's house, but I digress).

There is a slight potential for conflict; in my experience, all hornets are born with a sweet tooth and a bad temper, and particularly when there's ripe figs in my garden, tensions can rise.

That is entirely my fault though, because I still sometimes foolishly try to negotiate the human place in the food- (or rather: fruit-) chain, despite knowing perfectly well that fig season isn't the time to want to improve human-hornet relations, as any attempt in that regard will inevitably follow the same frustrating pattern:

Human: "Oh hello there Ms Hornet, how nice to meet you here at the fig tree - isn't the weather just lovely?"

Hornet: "Bzzzzzz. I have a sting. Bzzzzz. Go away. Bzzzzz."

Human: "There is really no need to be so angry, dear Ms Hornet: we're all friends here, and there's enough figs for all of us! How are the kids, I mean... larvae?"

Hornet: "Bzzzzzz. I have a sting. Bzzzzz. Go away. Bzzzzz."

Human: "Jeez, OK - relax! I can see you have a sting, I'm going, all right? You can have all the figs Ms Hornet, see: I'm already leaving!"

Hornet: "Bzzzzz. Yes, I have a sting. Bzzzzz. Don't come back. Bzzzzz."

And that's how THAT conversation goes.

Yet despite our occasional differences (like when I nearly died of smoke inhalation because Her Royal Hornet Majesty had decided my chimney was another suitable place for her nest), I'm happy to report we generally get along quite well, unless... - well, unless the hornets are intoxicated.

It's one of nature's lesser known facts (or perhaps its dirty secret) that many of our friends in the animal kingdom occasionally like to get high, and hornets are no exception. Not on anything illegal, mind; they are law-abiding insects after all, so you won't see them smoke crack or snort cocaine (although with some hornets I wouldn't rule that out completely 😉).

No: their usual drug of choice is alcohol, which my irritable neighbors find - surprise! - in my fig tree. Once some of the overripe fruit start to ferment, their potent juices become a magnet for hornets - and that's when the trouble starts.

It should come as no surprise that "hornets and hooch" are an inherently problematic combination. Because the crux with alcohol is this: it doesn't alter your personality, it only brings out the character traits that are already there without a filter, so you just become a terribly unrestrained version of yourself when you drink too much.

Which with hornets - who aren't the most cheerful bunch even on a good day - is a recipe for disaster. They are MEAN drunks - and I'm not kidding, oh boy. All that bottled-up anger constantly boiling underneath that shiny, chitin surface from the moment they hatch is finally released into the world, and it's not a pleasant sight, let me tell you.

Alcohol REALLY doesn't seem to improve their mood, and the other animals in my garden all agree (and I concur) that the fig tree would be a much happier place if the hornets just smoked weed and listened to Bob Marley instead (if them getting high can't be avoided altogether).

To be fair though, not all hornets have a drinking problem. Most of them behave responsibly and "don't drink and fly" (which I'm sure is a motto that gets taught in hornet school from an early age). And they don't get high all year long: It's only when fall arrives that the hornets like to have a merry get-together in my fig tree to get a good "buzz on".

But you know how it is: just like with any good party, there's always the ONE guy who can't hold his liquor and basically turns into your angry, drunk uncle at Christmas who starts picking fights with every one at the dinner table and insists on letting you know - very loudly - what he thinks about Trump or Biden or the Corona virus once he's had one too many.

Which finally brings me back to the fella in the photo above, because apparently he was THAT guy. That particular "drunk uncle" hornet sat underneath the fig tree on a fallen (and pretty rotten looking) fruit and was deep into its cups. As soon as it saw me, it started to buzz angrily and seemed intent on a confrontation, but it didn't manage to get airborne for more than a second.

After a few more failed attempts to lift off and a few more angry "Bzzzzzz" sounds (I think I actually did hear the words "Trump", "Biden" and "Corona" in there 😉), it just went back to boozing on the juices of the spoiled fig on the ground.

I left it to its own devices, happy that I got this quite expressive shot. 😊

P.S. I think it was actually a crazy, drunk AUNT - not an uncle 😉)

P.P.S. Just to make sure we understand each other (maybe as a disclaimer for readers who come to this gallery for the first time and aren't familiar with my kind of humor): I love the fact that these beautiful insects visit my garden. Watching how these efficient predators hunt wasps, horseflies or other insects is incredibly fascinating (adult hornets themselves mainly feed on sugary plant juices, but they hunt because their young need protein to grow).

Hornets may seem like they're constantly angry (which to me is funny - hence this text), but they're not; they're actually very peaceful towards humans, and even when you compete for a ripe fig with them, their furious buzzing is mostly just a bluff, and I've never been stung (and I don't know anyone who has).

Due to the unfounded fear many people have of hornets, who often get exterminated because they're confused with common wasps, this species is threatened in many countries (in Germany for example, hornets are a protected species). But unless you step (or sit) on them or destroy their nest, hornets don't attack, and even when they're drunk, they are usually so incapacitated that they are completely harmless (just like your uncle/aunt 😉).

So if you have hornets in your garden, just enjoy watching them and please don't harm them! 🙏 🙏 ❤ ❤

With that being said, I hope you like the photo and wish you all a wonderful weekend! Many greetings from Switzerland, and as always: let me know what you think in the comments 🙏 😊 ❤!

Dickcissel in the Rain (1) by Michael D Boyd

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A&M Research Center May 2023

DSC_9071 my white cydonia by profmarilena

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butterfly by Sung Jin Ahn

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:)

Tulipán by Cecilia Rey Ph

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Another July day by Dan Zaza Lake

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Close-up with a tele (1) by Werner Ustorf

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This blossom is about 2.5cm in diameter, and the tele lens is a whopping 450mm (on my APS-C sensor). One of the advantages of this mirror-reflex lens is that you can get close to the object (down to 90cm). I had not expected this, but I am in fact using this lens mostly for close-ups. Contre-jour/reflector.

Bee by Varun VG

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closeup..

Red Rose Closeup by ksblack99

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Tulips by June Marie

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glass by Marina Chistyakova

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HMM to all participants!

Bee closeup by Konstantinos

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