Any tips on seducing butterflies?


XavierShoot

Member
Aug 2, 2009
348
2
18
Singapore, Aussie
those who went to the fragile forest in the Singapore Zoological Gardens must have seen this tray off syrup for the butterflies to feed on, i was wondering if it its possible to purchase, mix, or produce this syrup. so i can pour it in a park or something and lots of butterfly will come and eat it. thus enabling us to take photos?

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sorry for the noob question, not sure if its possible. anyone tried?
 

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Not sure about the syrup but insects disappear when the whether gets warm, so early morning and night would be good timings to see a lot of butterflies
 

You can try salt licks.
 

You can try the butterfly garden at sentosa imbiah lookout. Although you need to pay to go in, but the butterflies there are not human shy and you can touch and even hold them. Managed to even take videos and snap photos. I even took and place some on my daughter's head, shoulders and arms.
 

jokes aside...... I've seen some people go a day earlier to bait an area with cut fruits and such and spray a small area down with sugar water etc etc
 

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Nice one, Ed. Must try this someday. :bsmilie:

TS, pop over to Butterflies of Singapore blog and read the feature articles. You may pick up a thing or two about butt shooting eventually. ;)

roger! thanks alot! i will read up there.

You can try the butterfly garden at sentosa imbiah lookout. Although you need to pay to go in, but the butterflies there are not human shy and you can touch and even hold them. Managed to even take videos and snap photos. I even took and place some on my daughter's head, shoulders and arms.
sounds good to me, been some time since i went to sentosa le! alright~ morning is good right?

jokes aside...... I've seen some people go a day earlier to bait an area with cut fruits and such and spray a small area down with sugar water etc etc
u mean in sentosa itself?!
 

roger! thanks alot! i will read up there.


sounds good to me, been some time since i went to sentosa le! alright~ morning is good right?


u mean in sentosa itself?!

I think he meant in public parks and gardens
 

I have had some luck by rubbing a piece of over ripe pineapple on a few leaves to attract butterflies, there was the added bonus of dragon flies as well.
 

jokes aside...... I've seen some people go a day earlier to bait an area with cut fruits and such and spray a small area down with sugar water etc etc

my concern is, would it alter the behaviour of butterflies?

maybe the butterfly expert here could comment.

i.e. if the butterflies in an area get used to having presence of food that is not present in their usual natural environment, would this have any effect on their behaviour?

my understanding is that this practice is more or less frowned upon in many other branches of nature, e.g. birds.
 

Butt shooting?! :bsmilie:

yep. BUTT shooting.

so far my experience at the hortpark one, is the more still u are, the more sweaty u are, the more likely they wanna sit on u...
 

my concern is, would it alter the behaviour of butterflies?

maybe the butterfly expert here could comment.

i.e. if the butterflies in an area get used to having presence of food that is not present in their usual natural environment, would this have any effect on their behaviour?

my understanding is that this practice is more or less frowned upon in many other branches of nature, e.g. birds.

Got to introduce one of my Malaysian macro-maniac friends to u one day.... guy has an entire PORTABLE homemade 1.3m 'tree' all set up for attracting macro subjects .... set up as in having holes drilled all over on the big and small branches for the expressed purpose of keeping insect bait out of sight when executing images.... and the 'formulas' that they use.... from papaya to chicken liver juice mashed with crickets to corn flaks with cheese etc etc etc .... with food dyes and all to keep everything camouflaged from the viewer

Home birders do set up feeders (feeding stations ) hanging from trees, short posts or even outside windows and stock them up with seeds

http://birdingdepot.com/

But thats a different debate altogether... like set-up or au naturale shot
 

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I once read in a macro book on some ways to shoot butterflys.

1. Pee somewhere before sun rise. Apparently butterflys and other insects will be attracted to the moisture. IMHO, probably attract flies more than anything, as seen during ns outfields.

2. 1part sugar+ 3part water. Spray onto flowers in early morning before sun rise. Probably just emulating a "sweet flower"

3. Shoot on colder morning as apparently most insects move slower as temperature decreases. Probably not exactly feasible in singapore.

4. Catch and put inside fridge for 5-10mins then shoot in studio. Just trying to acchieve the above, but I really don't dare to do something like this. It is claim to be harmless to the insect as it starts moving normally as it warms up after a few mins out of the fridge. Fridge temp is probably like typical early spring.

So far, I find it the easiest to shoot butterfly around 8am. Ample sunlight and butterflies all busy at work. Too late it get very hot and no more butterflies. My spotting of butterflies is like seasonal, as in they come and go with the flowers and it seems certain flowers attract certain type of butterfly.
 

:thumbsup::thumbsup: they like salty stuff?

Yup. Animals in the wild (birds, butterflies, tigers etc) will lick at naturally occurring salt licks to get required salts and minerals into their systems.

There was a natural salt lick in a place in Perak, it was accidentally destroyed during construction work and the butterflies in that area all disappeared.
 

Got to introduce one of my Malaysian macro-maniac friends to u one day.... guy has an entire PORTABLE homemade 1.3m 'tree' all set up for attracting macro subjects .... set up as in having holes drilled all over on the big and small branches for the expressed purpose of keeping insect bait out of sight when executing images.... and the 'formulas' that they use.... from papaya to chicken liver juice mashed with crickets to corn flaks with cheese etc etc etc .... with food dyes and all to keep everything camouflaged from the viewer

Home birders do set up feeders (feeding stations ) hanging from trees, short posts or even outside windows and stock them up with seeds

http://birdingdepot.com/

But thats a different debate altogether... like set-up or au naturale shot
understand that loads of people do such a thing, but how about potential long-term effects?