paper kite butterfly – Beth's Planet

Butterfly Diary 2016, Week 5

March 30, 2016October 1, 2016Posted in Animals, Blog posts, ButterfliesTagged blue morpho, Butterflies in Bloom, chrysalis, Dow Gardens, frog, green banded peacock, Midland Michigan, paper kite butterfly, zebra longwingLeave a comment

Inside the conservatory, which is filled with tropical plants year round and has a glass ceiling and walls

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.

Four butterflies sharing a food dish — Among the butterflies on this food dish are a zebra longwing, front, and a paper kite, hanging off the side. The former’s body looks black with white markings, the other white with black.

A green banded peacock butterfly on a tree — Toward the left you can see the edge of this green banded peacock’s left wing, and the brilliant color it sports on its top side. Look toward the right and you can see that its body matches.

Frog and blue morpho butterfly next to each other in a pond — This is one of the resident pond frogs. There are two, a male and a female, and they are maybe a decade old. And next to it is a blue morpho, looking pretty oblivious and stupid. Maybe the butterfly was just too big, because the frog ignored it. When one around swallowtail size started to light, though, the frog leapt into action, and both butterflies flitted away.

Butterfly Diary 2016, Week 4

March 23, 2016October 1, 2016Posted in Animals, Blog posts, Butterflies, Plant PicsTagged atala hairstreak, blue morpho, Butterflies in Bloom, butterfly, clearwing, Dow Gardens, giant owl, gold banded forester, great orange tip butterfly, magnificent owl, Midland Michigan, paper kite butterfly1 Comment

We had giant owls already, but now we have magnificent owls as well. They are slightly smaller but also differ by the yellow band on the wing.

Paper kite and buckeye butterflies on yellow marigolds — Today we had the largest paper kite any of us present had seen. Toward the upper left corner is a buckeye.

Butterfly on camera equipment — When I first came in for my Butterflies in Bloom shift at Dow Gardens, there were several photographers set up in the conservatory. While one of them was focused on another butterfly, this one settled on his remaining equipment.

Gold banded forester butterfly on a yellow marigold — The object of their attention was this gold banded forester.

Orangetip butterfly — This great orange tip was content to sit on the emergence case for a while. Down below are some of our laminated ID sheets, which show some of our more common varieties. Once we topped 140, we gave up on listing them all because the photos would have been tiny.

Black and yellowish green butterfly with brown, white and pink tones on underside of wing — This is one of my favorites, because it is so different on the two sides of the wings. While the top is black with a greenish yellow, the underside has tones of brown, white, green and sometimes pink.

This was a crasher, a blue butterfly that fell as soon as it emerged. I scooped it up and moved it to a less crowded spot. Within minutes it had opened its wings fully and was well on the way to growing strong.

This blue morpho and two giant owls were deeply camped on this food dish. This was the first time I saw butterflies act territorial; many smaller ones got pushed firmly away by an owl’s leg.

Emergence case full of varied chrysalises and recently emerged butterflies — Can you tell it was a busy day for emergence?

Atala butterfly — This atala hairstreak butterfly is perhaps our tiniest.

Clearwing butterfly on a yellow marigold — Just a little larger is this Costa Rican clearwing (yes, cleverly named).

Butterfly Diary 2015, Week 5: A photo gallery

March 26, 2015October 1, 2016Posted in Animals, Blog posts, ButterfliesTagged Butterflies, Butterflies in Bloom, butterfly, chrysalis, Dow Gardens, giant owl, giant swallowtail, lacewing, Mexican bluewing, Midland, paper kite butterfly, pipevine swallowtail, postman butterfly, queen butterfly, spicebush swallowtailLeave a comment

My favorite photo of the week, a paper kite hanging from its chrysalis.

A spicebush swallowtail feeds on a zinnia.

A sunny day meant lots of emergence for Butterflies in Bloom this week. When the temperature hit 85 in the Conservatory, the vents opened, so keeping the floors wet was a challenge this week. I still managed to squeeze in a few photos, and stayed after my shift to try for a few more.