Welcome to Butterflies in Bloom! I volunteer Wednesday afternoons at this seasonal Dow Gardens event and this is the only photo I took this week out in the exhibit.

Look at all the babies! I tend the two chrysalis cases from the little room behind them, scooping up anyone who falls during emergence and getting them hanging to dry properly. I also remove dry and active butterflies to a large net bug catcher and give them to another volunteer to release into the exhibit. Visitors get very excited when new butterflies are released and often ask to hold them, which we allow, unlike most butterfly exhibits.

This is the underside of a butterfly shot through the glass on the back side of a case.

A giant owl. Some of the owls in the adjacent case were about half this size. We receive chrysalises from a variety of suppliers so the difference is striking but not so surprising.

The orange and black butterflies to the right are leopard lacewings. After emergence they all stayed politely clinging to their own chrysalises instead of flying or crawling around causing trouble for others.

I don’t know what this brown butterfly is, but it certainly demonstrates you don’t have to be brightly colored to be beautiful. (I am partial to brown; so much of it in my wardrobe.)

This is a paper kite butterfly drying on its chrysalis.

All three of the green butterflies on this wall are malachites. I like this photo because it shows how much difference there can be between the top and underneath sides of the wings. Probably the most vivid example of this is the blue morpho, which has a brown underside edged with white spots, and a brilliant blue topside.