Pink Rose

Description:

Papilionidae; Papilioninae; Troidini; Pachliopta kotzebuea tindongana Page & Treadaway, 1995. This butterfly is endemic to the Philippines and is known as Pink Rose. It has been on my bucket list for years. I had long given up hope of ever seeing one. I think I had come to believe that it was not present in our immediate area, despite being documented present in Central and Western Luzon. So, when this one flew into our front yard just after 8:00 a.m. today, I was determined to get some pictures. I thought everything was in my favour. There I was in the front yard with my camera in my hand and there was the butterfly right in front of me. What could possibly go wrong ? Well, just about everything. This beautiful creature gave me the runaround. It was very frenetic, darting from flower to flower, staying no longer than a second or two on each. I completely missed it with my first four attempts and I thought I was going to end up with nothing but some bad photos of flowers. Then, in desperation, I tried something I had never done with a camera. I stopped raising it up to my face to look into the viewfinder and, instead, pointed it at the butterfly, as if I were just pointing a finger. It worked. I got the two pictures shown here. They were pretty rough, but a little rotating of the image and some severe cropping and I had two slightly fuzzy pictures, but it cannot be denied that this Pink Rose is now off my bucket list and on Project Noah. As they say here in the Philippines - "Ay, salamat !" - figuratively translated - "Thank goodness!"

Habitat:

This Pink Rose was spotted in our front yard sipping nectar from the flowers of a Great bougainvillea (Bougainvillea spectabilis) known as Bogambilya, here in the Philippines. Plant identification - http://www.stuartxchange.org/Bogambilya