Vicky’s lovely friends Frankie and David wrangled us freebie tickets to the Key West Butterfly and Nature Conservatory. We showed up there on Wednesday, bright and early, before the arrival of the wild tourist hordes.
Although fidgety by nature, when you’re surrounded by 1,500 of those dazzling beauties, some of them will actually hold still for long enough to get a good shot. As you can imagine, I went into a clicking frenzy until the red light on my camera alerted me to the battery’s defeat.
All that posing and fluttering about gives them a mighty appetite:
Butterflies aren’t the only inhabitants of the conservatory; there’s a whole flock of brightly-coloured birds keeping them company.
Awww, so pretty! I too should go camera-crazy! And arrrgh, that last image will haunt me every time I want to order quail! (which I do love…)
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Me too… and quail eggs… 😉
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Maybe you could eat some of the butterflies while you’re at it? 😉
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What is wrong with you, woman!
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The only nature things she appreciates are leprichauns and pork products.
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I don’t think science has come that far yet 😉
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They certainly looked good enough to eat 😉
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The Butterfly Conservatory is one of my favorite places in Key West! We took a million pictures when we were there too! And your pictures are absolutely gorgeous! I wish I could have gotten to hold baby quail! JEALOUS! Even if you have to pay, it is not expensive and worth every penny! Thanks for sharing!
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Thanks 🙂 I wouldn’t have minded paying for something like that… it was a beautiful experience
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The butterflies are beautiful, but the little quail teals the show…. Hmm, just think of those eggs later on!
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There’s a slightly disconcerting story to it… the wee squirt has a couple of siblings, and the staff took those and their mother out of the conservatory and transferred them into a plastic tank for their safety. There’s people stampeding about in there, you see, and they didn’t want them to get trodden on. But this one they found a day later (a few minutes before I took that picture), and now the rest of the family won’t accept him 😦 He might still do OK, at least we’re hoping.
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Oh, poor little mite
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I raise chicks from day old and they are very resilient. So, as long as it wasn’t too chilled when they found it, and they keep it under a heat lamp, then it should do fine! Too bad about Mom, but then, birds are so fickle! 😦
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It’s not the temperature (it’s over 80 degrees in there), but the people trampling along the paths without looking, coz they are distracted by the butterflies.
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Good, it stayed warm then and should have a good chance! 😀
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If he manages to dodge all those galumping feet…
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Your butterfly with the eye spot on the outside of its big blue wings looks like a Blue Morpho!
What a lovely excursion!
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Beautiful captures of some gorgeous butterflies. It’s so much fun to go to a Butterfly Conservatory. 🙂
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It absolutely was! We must have sat on a bench in there for a full hour, it was mesmerising and relaxing all at the same time 😉
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Nice! I love it. 🙂
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Oh gorgeous! My favourite post of yours yet.
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Fabulous captures (without injuring a soul 🙂 ) and I’m in love with the baby quail.
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Thanks 🙂 Camera definitely preferable to a net 😉
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wow! what great colors! I especially like the black butterflies with blue/gold on their wings. we always pay a visit to the butterfly “tent” (used to be a tent, it’s now a building) at the Minnesota state fair every year. they always check visitors so that the butterflies that land on you don’t walk out with you 🙂
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Yes, we were instructed to check ourselves for passengers before leaving 😉
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What a lovely post to read after coming home late in a snow storm! Such beauty.
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Brrrrrr!!! 😉
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Quaiiiiil! I’ve never tried a quail egg before, and now I don’t think I can…
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What camera do you use? These are amazing pics, wonderful detail.
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Just a cheap digital Olympus one, paid just over a hundred quid for it. It has a super-macro setting, which captures the detail nicely, provided you can get close enough and the object doesn’t move.
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