Not everything is “pretty” about butterflies!

I love to watch butterflies. Who doesn’t?! When I first started planting specifically to draw bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds to the gardens I read about them extensively and at first was a bit taken back by reading how they like to suck the juice off animal dung and carrion! Nasty right? But, everything has a purpose, regardless of whether it is considered pretty by us humans. Now I have seen butterflies on dung… but never carrion. While driving in the country wildgathering with my brother Eric, we saw a tremendous amount of butterflies gathered in the road ahead of us. We had the car windows down and as we approached this gathering, many butterflies flew up and right into the car with us! We pulled over and got out and saw this less than savory sight…. Now don’t scroll down and look if you are squeamish!

Now I have never ever seen a blue butterfly around these parts, let alone one eating road kill! Sorry this a bit gross folks, but with all the butterfly talk lately, I just had to share to see if anyone else might know what kind of butterfly it is. Would love to see it in the gardens, in a prettier setting!

 

The Butterfly Palace

On a brief getaway my hubby and I took in July, we ended up in Branson, Missouri. My favorite thing there was The Butterfly Palace.

My digital camera gave out while here so I had to use my hubby’s 35 mm, so not many pictures. But go to the website and there are a lot of beautiful ones:) One of the coolest features was the 3D movie you get to watch before entering the atrium full of butterflies. It was narrated by Judy Densch, one of my favorite women! If you ever find yourself near Branson, I highly recommend the Butterfly Palace for entertainment, fun and learning. Very interesting to see the butterfly “nursery” and we happened to be there when some of the butterflies were ready to be released into the atrium!