Austin, Texas, is home to about 170 species of butterflies. It is also the home of the Austin Butterfly Forum, Inc., a non-profit organization dedicated to butterfly conservation and to enriching people's lives through butterflies. The Austin Butterfly Forum is a club that organizes field trips, conducts butterfly counts, promotes native gardening, performs conservation activities, and meets monthly for an educational presentation. We are a community of butterfly enthusiasts who also enjoy dragonflies & damselflies, bees, beetles, spiders and arthropods in general, and our meeting presentations span this gamut as well. Join Us!

Monarch (Danaus plexippus), photo by V. Bugh

Meetings are held in the Zilker Garden Center, 2220 Barton Springs Rd., Austin, TX, 78746 at 7:00 PM on the fourth Monday of each month except December.

Apr. 28, 2014, 7 PM meeting: Camera Workshop, presented by Ian Wright.

In this talk and workshop we will cover the basics and some advanced techniques of macrophotography. We'll start with a broad discussion about basic camera operation and equipment and then specifically focus on macro work. I will cover various types of macrophotography and the equipment involved in getting macro shots. I'll cover options for everything from cell phones to point and shoots to SLRs. My goal is to help you use your current equipment to get better shots! So bring your cameras! The second part of the talk will be a hands-on workshop with live insects. We'll get together in groups and practice some of the techniques discussed in the talk. Finally I'll discuss some post-processing work (including some advanced techniques like focus-stacking) and some ways you can share your amazing macro images!

Ian Wright is a graduate student at the University of Texas at Austin. He grew up watching wildlife in southern California and got his first SLR in 2008. Since then he has been actively photographing the natural world. He is an avid naturalist and strives to communicate natural history with his photography. Recently, Ian has undertaken a project to photograph wildlife on white backgrounds and he is putting a book together on the jumping spiders of the US.

May 26, 2014, 7 PM meeting: Butterflies of Spain: Picos de Europa, presented by Ron Martin.

The New World may have the Monarch but Spain has the Queen of Spain and Duke of Burgundy fritillaries in addition to Cleopatra. There are also Peacocks, Cardinals and Brimestone, with a Gatekeeper. Club members, Ron and Susan Martin, have made several trips to Spain for casual birding and butterflying. Ron will report some of their finds and experiences in the Picos de Europa in Northern Spain.