A Butterfly Weekend

Glasswing, Greta oto

We are just back from Warwickshire.  Exhausted.  It was dark and sometimes misty and rainy on the drive back.   It was the AGM of the Butterfly Conservation Organization.  

Our first stop was the Butterfly Farm in Stratford  - the conference was 20 minutes away.  It is worth a  visit if you find yourself there - very well laid out - lots of glasswing butterflies for the Captain to photograph- hatching pens, ponds with large carp (fat on their diet of tropical butterfly?), and flying flowers everywhere.  Plus they had a herd of darling little quail chicks running in and out of the greenery.  And there were some parakeets flying round, The noise they were making took me back to my expat days.

Quail

What was upsetting was the amount of dead and dying butterflies.  You had to be careful not to tread on them.  I felt what would have helped would be if they had had some kind of holding area for the butters just coming out of the hatching pens.

Parakeet on butterfly feeding table

Two large and beautiful ones tried to land on my face.   "Is that what happens when you are as lovely as any flower?" I trilled at Captain B.   "I plead the Fifth Amendment" he said glumly.

But then he brought a lovely blingy silver butterfly bracelet for me to dazzle all the delegates at the Convention with.