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.