Wednesday, July 02, 2008

More beauty

Before we left for home the day after our splendiferous visit to WEBS, Elvis and I made a slight detour to the Magic Wings butterfly conservatory.



Wow.



Magic Wings is a large greenhouse full of tropical plants (and feeders, like the one below that looks like a strawberry daiquiri).


Butterflies have the run of the place.



They dive-bomb you, they sometimes perch on your clothes, they flit and flutter everywhere around you.



And they come in every color and size.



Do not be fooled by this guy (below); this is not a photo of a leaf, but rather the butterfly's protective coloring on the underside of its wings so that when it perches, it will be unnoticed by predators.



If I hadn't seen the butterfly land, it certainly would have fooled me. Here's another butterfly's camouflage, including "eyespots" which are supposed to fool predators into thinking that the butterfly is an animal with multiple scary eyes. (This guy was bright blue inside but he didn't settle down long enough for us to photograph his colorful side.)


We were entranced by the place and would have stayed much longer if we didn't have a long drive ahead of us.


I had never seen butterflies with translucent wings like some of them had -- and I never imagined being able to take such close-up shots of these unusual creatures. If you are in the South Deerfield, MA area, it's definitely worth a stop.

Oh yes, we met Akbar the tropical bird, too, as well as a turtle, quail chicks and some skinks. You'll be pleased to know, however, that there were no skanks.


Present company excepted, of course.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Such beautiful pictures! I need to start a notebook of places I want to go that I've learned about through blogs.
You look so happy in your picture- yay Elvis!

Anonymous said...

today I REALLY needed to see something beautiful.

like butterflies, and parrots, and an SnK member.

thanks carol! ;-)

Anonymous said...

I love going to butterfly houses, I have a picture somewhere of me at Pili Palas on Anglesey with one the size of an adult hand on my forehead.

Meghann said...

glad to know you enjoyed it. We've been wanting to take the kiddos there!

Anonymous said...

Glad you got to see it (and the remarkable WEBS) and in excellent company with Elvis; we went to MW for first and only visit back in April. I have a great photo of my son with that Mali lizard/turtle thing on his shoulder :)

Sorry to learn of the (suddent) lifedrama on your re-entry.

Unknown said...

Lovely photos. My personal favorite is the blue/yellow one.