When Butterflies in Bloom extended to Wednesday evenings, it was one of my favorite times to volunteer because the residents would start roosting … cuddling up for bedtime, I would tell young children. This is from the sole Wednesday shift I was able to work this year, around 5 p.m. March 11. No word yet on whether we can open for the last scheduled week of the exhibit.
This butterfly chose the large sculpture in the center of the Conservatory for a resting place.
Sometimes they just get attached. I’ve seen children charmed that a butterfly remains on their clothing or even a finger for 20 minutes. Many, of course, do no such thing. Butterflies in Bloom remains closed through April 5, but at the moment we volunteers still hope to be back at our posts for the two final scheduled weeks.
My swallowtail friend from yesterday’s post outside the case, where its blue colors are more visible.
A swallowtail friend in the chrysalis case last Wednesday. Dow Gardens had to close the Butterflies in Bloom exhibit to the public through April 5, so I’ll be dribbling out the photos I took on the only volunteer shift I was able to get in. Gardens staffers are tending the insects in case the Gardens and Conservatory can reopen for the last two scheduled weeks of butterflies.
Sadly, I am not volunteering as a butterfly caregiver at Butterflies in Bloom at Dow Gardens in Midland, MI. Work commitments made a weekly two-hour afternoon shift prohibitive this year.
I am cheered by knowing I made someone very happy with the opening of that shift, as the job always has people eager to fill it. I hope that next year I can return. In the meantime I still can visit, which is what I did Friday:
This was my last week tending baby butterflies in 2016, as Dow Gardens’ Butterflies in Bloom is nearly over. The varieties we have only live a few weeks, so when the exhibit ends, the conservatory is closed to visitors while all our insect friends finish out their short but happy lives.
The “rules” posted in the vestibule – Elly Maxwell, our entomologist, prefers to limit the rules as much as possible – include
I brought my lovely daughter Heather, who proved adept at finding hidden butterflies – the camouflaged Southern white covered in mist from a fan below, and the Mexican bluewing hiding deep within a plant but still in a sunny spot, below that.
(As a child, she was our “finder” when objects went missing. The Southern white butterfly eventually concerned her enough that she asked me to check on it, so I moved it to a sunny and dry spot, and it took off immediately.)
We didn’t plan to have moths this year and so our moth case isn’t out in the exhibit. Moths lay eggs quickly so we don’t want them out in the conservatory and always keep them separate. But a supplier sent us some luna moth cocoons so we dealt with it. Elly is collecting the moths for possible use in a pinned collection she is creating.
A sunny day made occupants and visitors alike happy at Dow Gardens’ Butterflies in Bloom.
One of the questions I was asked most often Tuesday was, as one child put it, “Why are you putting water on the floor?” With sun pouring through the glass, I had to do this about every hour, more often than usual.
I tell people that many of our butterflies come from jungle and rain forest environments, and while we can’t bring in all of their native plants, we replicate their humidity and temperature the best we can.
Some butterfly nicknames make sense, some less so. Crackers get their name because the males make a “cracking” sound when being territorial. The two below are a gray cracker, which is gray, and a red cracker, which is blue.
The butterfly on the right above is a blue morpho. You can just barely see the blue topside at the wing opening. If you’re wondering why I didn’t just wait for it to open, you clearly are not one of the people who has waited 20 minutes or longer for this to happen.
This is perhaps the zooiest week at Dow Gardens’ Butterflies in Bloom … spring break. We had loads of babies in arms inside the conservatory and strollers parked outside.
There wasn’t time for much picture taking but I did answer a LOT of questions, mostly of the “What kind is that?” variety. With a lot of emergence in the case there were ample opportunities to observe brand-new butterflies, and when one came out halfway but got stuck, I unpinned it from the shelf, brought it around for people to see and as quickly as I could move gently, removed the rest of the chrysalis to free its wings. “It’s like separating layers of wet tissue paper,” I told the handful of people watching, before moving the baby back into the case.
While the wings attract the most attention, I find it interesting how much difference there is in the coloration of the bodies. There is even variety in the eyes, with some solid black while others are spotted.
Beth's Planet 