In the past six months, I have been to 4 butterfly gardens/exhibitions! I guess it was having the macro lens that prompt our first visit to a butterfly garden - Butterfly World, Florida. The other gardens that we have visited to see some butterflies are the Desert Botanical Garden at Phoenix, AZ, Frederick Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park at Grand Rapids, Michigan and the most recent trip, Penang Butterfly Farm, Malaysia.
Butterfly World is by far the largest butterfly farm. In addition to butterflies, they also have an aviary and various flower gardens, making it the most enjoyable park out of all 4 gardens that we have been to. We went there first thing in the morning, arriving shortly before it opened (kiasu mah!) and stayed until almost 5pm! Since the main attraction is the butterfly farm, we spent most of our time there and some time at the aviary. As the flowers were not blooming yet, we were only at the flower garden briefly. The nice thing about this garden is that there is a lakeside cafe where we could take a rest, look through some of our photos and get some snacks. There was also a macaw section that we spent quite sometime at as they have very interesting interactions. We also went into the lorikeet section but only stayed for a while because the lorikeets were feisty! They kept nibbling on John's camera bag and seem to have no manners when flying around! :P One butterfly that we saw a lot here and haven't seen it elsewhere is the one that has a huge black dot that makes it look like a bird's eye. It is known as the owl butterfly (Caligo eurilochus).
In early March, when I made a trip to Arizona, we went to the Desert Botanical Garden at Phoenix. It is mainly a garden of various plants from the desert ecosystem. It also has a section representing the lifestyle and various natural resources used by the people of the Sonoran Desert (the desert of northern Mexico, California and Arizona) in the olden days. When I was there, they had the Spring Butterfly Exhibit so we got to see more butterflies! However, the exhibit area is very small, only about the size of our Penang garden. As we went on a Friday morning, there were a lot of kids on school trip so it was a lot more crowded. There are also fewer varieties of butterflies compared to the ones we saw at Butterfly World. Even though there were fewer varieties, I did saw a few that I haven't seen before - the malachite (Siproeta stelenes), a light green moth and one with green and brown wings (this one might be a moth).
I also saw one yellow butterfly hidden under a flower.
We spent a few hours in the exhibit area and then head out to walk around the garden. Besides butterfly photos, there were not as much to capture as cactus are less colorful. We did end up spending most of the day there too because the park is huge and has various trails with different characteristics of desert ecosystem. Photos of this trip on Flickr and Multiply.
In mid April, John came back to Michigan for a visit and we took a day trip to the Frederick Meijer Gardens at Grand Rapids. Similar to the garden in Arizona, they had an exhibition of tropical butterflies, which they called "Butterflies are Blooming". The Meijer Gardens have a similar layout as the Desert Botanical Gardens where it is divided into different sections, one of which is a farm garden showing an example of a typical Michigan farm. They also have a children's garden with interesting flower arrangements, an indoor arid ecosystem and a mini waterpark for the kids. There is also a section with sculptures. The butterfly exhibit was held at the Lena Meijer Conservatory, a tropical conservatory. It has the humidity of M'sia weather but much much cooler. We went there on a Saturday morning and as expected, it was very crowded too. The conservatory is much bigger than the exhibit area at the Desert Botanical Gardens but it has a very high rooftop allowing a lot of the butterflies fly up high, which made them hard to be photographed with a macro lens. It is also more challenging to capture close-up photos of the butterflies because the the high density of leaves in the controlled tropical environment decrease the amount of light available. After spending a few hours in the conservatory, we went out to take a walk around the other gardens but it was very windy that day. We decided to go back into the conservatory to get a few more photos. If it wasn't for the wind, I think we could have gotten a lot of flower photos too because the tulips and a few other flowers were blooming. I didn't get as many nice butterfly photos because of the lighting but did get to see a few more different butterfly, like this blue one.
It was very hard to get a photo of this butterfly. Whenever it lands, it will close its wings. Most of the butterflies in this garden is the smaller ones with black wings. However, I get to see a butterfly popped out from its cocoon! When they first hatched, their wings are all crumpled and take a few hours for them to pump liquid for the wings to completely open.
The most recent butterfly encounter is at the Penang Butterfly Garden, back in Malaysia. All these visits to the butterfly gardens made me look for one in Penang and guess what, there is one in Teluk Bahang! Knowing the lack of sustainability in any of Malaysia's public amenities, I had low expectation for this garden. Surprisingly, I find it to be the second most enjoyable garden, after the Butterfly World in Florida. Thankful for the tropical environment in Malaysia, the garden is an outdoor park. Unlike the other gardens in the States, it is solely aimed for butterfly farming. However, it is much bigger than the butterfly exhibits at Grand Rapids or Arizona. They also have small areas with other types of animals such as ducks, snakes, lizards, scorpions, turtles and a pond of fishes. It was fun to see other bugs like the moving leaf and the stick bug.
While we were looking at the moving leaf bug, one of the people working there came out to release some butterflies that just hatched. We get to see lots of different butterfly and a huge moth!
We only spent a few hours there because it was getting really hot and there was no place to sit down for a rest. If they have a snack bar or at least a vending machine selling drinks or ice-cream and a shaded rest area, I think we could have spent a longer time there. There are a lot of different butterflies and other bugs that will be fun to photograph. It is definitely worth going back. Next time, will go first thing in the morning when the butterflies are not as active and on a weekday.
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