You don't know what you've got.....

Until you see the detail blown up with a crop on your PC. Definitely a lesson in keeping your SD card intact and not deleting in camera.

Female [clue] Citrus Butterfly searching the top of my cumquat for what, a parking lot? Apologies to Joni Mitchel!



2 And again, they would 'search' for quite some time.



3 Before finding a suitable spot to lay their eggs. This would take maybe 20 seconds with the front wings fluttering at an extremely fast rate [SS 1/4000sec] the fresh eggs are clear but rapidly change colour on exposure to air. Unfortunately a little dark as taken partially into the sun.



4 And again. No way can you see the eggs with the naked eye or in camera.



5 Dropped the SS tenfold for Angora! [see BIF] but still not enough blur, I'll take it much lower given an opportunity as the rear wings don't move too much although blur showing up in the legs.



6 And here's the difference a fraction of a second makes, what appears to be an egg just being expelled from the abdomen.



7 With an extreme crop...   Looked better before I had to resize for dyxum.

Thanks Art, glad you enjoyed them. I should have mentioned that the females unerringly targeted the newer more succulent leaves [see above] and more often than not deposited their eggs near he tips.

Thanks Harm. I think these are the Dingy Swallowtail or Small Citrus, see Wikipedia Papilio anactus. They give a wingspan of 140mm for the female of the Large Citrus but nothing for the small except to say they are medium sized but I would hazard a guess at about 60-70mm.