Tag: butterfly world

Fly away, high away, bye bye

On By dinajohnstonIn Florida animals, Vacation1 Comment

So many butterflies. I could have spent all day at Butterfly World near Ft. Lauderdale. The best thing to do is to find a good spot to sit and wait for them to land. I’ve heard they don’t flutter around as much later in the day but then the aviary would be crowded with people. We were there when it opened and there were only a few other people there

These black ones with yellow bodies were all over the aviary. I found a few pairs mating.

There were so many different ones. I’m not even going to try and identify these.

One of the rooms had a waterfall and bridge and you could see most of the area from the bridge.

One of the cool things was seeing the rows of pupas in all different stages. They had these plus many more set up in front of windows and you could see the butterflies emerging.

When I see butterflies I think of Elton John’s song –

You’re a butterflyAnd butterflies are free to flyFly awayHigh awayBye bye

an image of a red sports car with a lady caricature going at Vroom Vroom high speed, Senior Salon Pit Stop Vroom Vroom Linkup

The “No power” road trip

On By dinajohnstonIn bird photography5 Comments

We lost power early in the afternoon on the day Hurricane Milton was coming. The next morning after spending the day cleaning up the yard we decided to take a road trip for a few days since we knew the electricity would not be coming back on for at least several days. Local hotels were full from people evacuating the coastal areas and the gas stations were out of gas (and most didn’t have power anyway).  We had a full tank of gas and figured we could make it to West Palm Beach before filling up again so we packed the car Friday morning and headed to Ft. Lauderdale to visit Brett’s relatives. We didn’t see any gas until we got to the other side of the state. We spent Saturday with Brett’s aunt and uncle and Sunday we decided to do some sightseeing. We were at Butterfly World when they opened.

Gouldian finches were flying freely in the big aviary at Butterfly World. The males have the darker purple chest and the females have paler chests. They are beautiful birds and it was fun to watch them chasing after each other.

The budgies were flirting and preening each other.

This couple, with their zebra striped heads, were kissing.

This was a target rich environment with lots of little birds flying close by. The top is a juvenile gouldian finch who hasn’t gotten his bright feathers yet. The middle one is a scaly-breasted munia. I have heard there are some wild ones flying around parts of Tampa. The orange one is some type of canary.

There was a small flock of cockatiels and I wondered if they were former pets that were surrendered.

Some type of guineafowl? There were several creeping around on the ground.

And yes, there were tons of butterflies at Butterfly World but more on them later. A quick video of them fluttering around as I walked into the aviary.

 

Birds at Butterfly World

On By dinajohnstonIn bird photography3 Comments

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There was an abundance of visual stimulation at Butterfly World. Besides tons of butterflies fluttering by you, there were tiny birds whizzing by as well. Lots of bright colors going by. The picture in the middle is of two birds that had landed on a lady’s head.  One had landing and was picking through her hair like he wanted it for nesting material. The other one landing and they were fighting over her head. After a few seconds, they both took off. She was just glad they didn’t poop in her hair.

Butterfly World

On By dinajohnstonIn Florida animals4 Comments

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All of the above were taken at Butterfly World in Coconut Creek, Florida, just north of Fort Lauderdale. Brett and I took a road trip down to south Florida on a recent weekend to visit some relatives and stopped in on our way down on a Friday afternoon. We spent two hours walking around admiring all of the beautiful butterflies, birds and flowers. You cannot take tripods or monopods in the exhibits so I was hand holding all of these.  I was torturing myself trying to get in-flight shots but they all came out blurry. It was a nice way to spend the afternoon before heading down farther south. I took a ton of pictures so more to come.