We made a trip last week to Six Flags Discovery Kingdom expressly to visit the butterfly house.
I never knew butterflies could be so beautiful...or so hard to photograph! The indoor space is filled with trees and bushes, so it is jungle-dark and steamy inside. Also, many of the butterflies like flying high. As they rise against the brightness of the solarium windows, it is hard to show their size, plus their beautiful details darken into mere silhouettes. The wingspan on the butterfly below was wider than the spread fingers of my hand and it was richly-colored.
But I finally found a few butterflies willing to be still. And thanks to my the recent photography class, I thought to try softening the flash on my camera.
Some butterflies like to hang upside down. Eli and I learned to check the undersides of leaves and branches to see what might be hiding there.
The butterfly snack bar -- nectar served up on golf tees embedded in a pink baseball. If you're feeling hungry, flutter on by!
We came upon a staff member who had many butterflies in a big mesh box. He explained these were newly-hatched butterflies and he was moving them one at a time to a wooden butterfly drying rack!
Wet-winged butterflies fresh from the cocoon, still clinging to the screen roof of the box...
The butterfly drying rack...
After enjoying the butterflies (and a few tot rides), we had a picnic lunch before heading home. Of course our sandwiches were cut into butterfly shapes!
After nap, we grabbed our book basket and headed for the library to find books about butterflies.
The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle
Life Cycle of a Butterfly by Angela Royston
Waiting for Wings by Lois Ehlert
For more butterfly books (and songs), visit the SurLaLune Storytime page.
Years ago when I did student teaching for my art education degree, I had so many ideas about things to do to jazz up a teaching unit. But we had huge class sizes, limited funds, lots of kids with behavior problems, and no chance at field trips. Sort of frustrating. Being a mom kicks the door wide open to doing all the fun things that pop into my brain. Satisfying! Hmmm. Maybe next week we'll go to the garden center to find some flowers butterflies like so we can coax them into visiting our back yard....
Looks like a beautiful butterfly garden!! We have visited a few butterfly garden over the years here in Oregon when the kids were little, as well as make a butterfly garden in our own yard. Great post!!
Posted by: April | 30 July 2011 at 01:01 AM