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
Please keep fingers out of food dishes!
Watch your feet! Be aware of butterflies on the floor.
Please don’t pick the flowers.
Watch out for hitchhikers!
No outside plant material in the display.
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.
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.
This week I’ll largely post photos. That’s what most people want anyway.
There was a lot of emergence in this, the first full week of Dow Gardens’ Butterflies in Bloom. We also had three mating pairs, which I haven’t seen this early on. For the most part people kept a respectful distance, but one woman plucked a mating pair off a marigold when I was busy elsewhere and put them on her toddler grandson to photograph. SERIOUSLY? Like you’d want to be bothered that way. And no, they were not at all inclined to separate; I don’t know how long they go at it, but some of them remained fond of each other for my entire 2-hour shift.