The beauty of butterflies

We've been wanting to go to Wings of Paradise for a while now, but we haven't. Now that it's literally a 5 minutes drive from our house, we made it a point to go there last weekend. It was

a very cool conservatory. And, I say cool as in neat because it was definitely far from cool. It was hot and muggy with a rain forest-like feeling- kinda like the weather we've been experiencing her for the last month. Nonetheless, it was a great little tropical sanctuary.

--

Doesn't this butterfly look eerily like an owl? The owl "eye" is used to scare away predators.

--

There were also these cute little birds there. I have yet to look them up in my book to find out what kind they were.

--

Paisley gets a little too close for comfort with the owl butterfly and swats at it- and obviously Darren is terrified that we get kicked out for accidentally killing a butterfly.

--

Paisley slept for a good part of our visit and Carys enjoyed herself until she almost stepped on a butterfly and then Darren gasped and scared the heck out of her. It obviously traumatized her because she shrieked, cried and flat out refused to walk or do anything else for the rest of the time and hid in the stroller- or should I say in Paisley's car seat.

--

Butterflies really are amazing. Their colours and frailty make them so interesting and fascintating. They're also a little freaky too because they fly right at you- they don't land on you, though. I was sad to learn that butterflies only live for about 3 weeks. What a pity.

We tried desperately to get a picture of the beautiful blue butterflies, but they rarely landed.

Next stop on our animal visits: the donkey sanctuary and the African Lion Safari.