Butterfly Eden

I didn’t buy a year-long pass to The Pacific Science Center in Seattle just to go once a year. So, today Leslie and I headed up to look around. I was especially looking forward to visiting the Butterfly Garden without the crowds that we saw early in June. We were the first visitors through the door, and for quite awhile the only visitors in the Butterfly Garden.

When I first entered the garden it struck me that if there ever was a Garden of Eden, it would have to look like this, with beautiful blue-brown butterflies drifting overhead. Despite my best efforts, though, I couldn’t manage to capture a picture of this butterfly in flight, the only time I could see the blue top:

Blue-Brown Butterfly

I wasn’t too disappointed, though because the muted browns and oranges seemed nearly as beautiful as the sky blue tops of the wings.

Truthfully, there were so many beautiful butterflies that it was hard to even stay focused long enough to get a good shot of any one of them.

This one was one of my favorites, I guess, because I had dozens of shots of it and its relatives:

Butterfly

I was also struck by the large number of black butterflies, a color I’ve not seen locally, but seemed widespread in South and Central America where most of those at the Pacific Science Center originated. If I hadn’t learned that today, I might have guessed that this butterfly was from Japan since his colors reminded me of a Japanese Kimono:

Black and Red Butterfly

The science center provides large identification charts and if they had been local butterflies I would have learned their names, but since I’m unlikely to ever see one outside this garden, I chose to enjoy their beauty on a sensual, rather than intellectual level.

9 thoughts on “Butterfly Eden”

  1. Do you know what kind of butterfly that first one is? I think I once raised two caterpillars that transformed into that type! Lovely pictures.

  2. Hi,

    I’ve just spent an hour trying to find out what type your beautiful butterfly is and found it:

    Heliconius hortense and I think it’s a male. 🙂

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