Butterfly Gardens March 15, 2009

Sunday morning we decided to escape the horrible windy, rainy, cold weather and pretend we were in the tropics by visiting Butterfly Gardens near Butchart Gardens. I've only been there once before, many years ago.

Butterflies and Moths
I never would have dreamed that the highlight of the gardens would be a moth called the Atlas Moth. A worker at the gardens felt that they were lucky to have these moths and alerted us to their location.

Part of a sign read:
Atlas Moth (Attacus Atlas)

• This spectacular moth from South East Asia is the world's largest in overall size with a wingspan of up to 30 cm (12").
• Nocturnal in habit, these moths spend most of the day resting on branches or rocks. They live only a few days (4 or 5), long enough to mate and lay eggs.
• As members of the giant silk moth family, they do not feed as adults and don't even have any mouth parts.
• The tips of their wings are patterned to look like snake heads and thus aid in protection.
• As a survival mechanism, the Atlas Moth can remain in the cocoon for several years and emerge when climatic conditions are ideal.

Look at the shape and incredible snakelike pattern on the wings in the picture below.

There were many butterflies too, which I know nothing about so I'm only guessing at the names. At least the ones in display cases stay still when you photograph them.

But alive, it helps if they stay still on a leaf like this Crimson Mormon...

... or on a flower like this Golden Helicon.

Beautiful red butterflies and blue ones were flying about but I never saw them settle anywhere. The staff places butterflies on childrens' hands.

PlantsIt's amazing that Glenn, with his insect phobia, would even go into a place like this. He said it did remind him of the botanical gardens in Hilo. To me that would mean wonderfully tropical; to him, a bit creepy.

I love the cantaloupe colour of this Angels Trumpet flower.

Birds
There were also birds, many of which I don't have photos of. Animals have a remarkable knack for turning their heads away just as you snap the shutter.

Flamingos look like they were put together badly with Tinkertoys. The neck looks as if it was made of broken pieces, the legs are like sticks stuck together in the middle with wads of chewing gum, and then, like icing covering an imperfect cake, some jazzy plumage was added.

Here is another pink bird, which I figure is a Rosey Bourke Parakeet.

I don't think of pink as being a big colour in nature but it is in leaves as well as flowers, not to mention rocks, skies, shells... quite a few places come to think of it.

I just wanted to take this cute little bird home.