Butterfly World, Fort Lauderdale, Florida
We spent a day at Butterfly World, well actually 6 hours and 600 photographs! I think Colin took 300 of them in the first 10 minutes. We walked our feet off, but now we can visualize what Eden looked like (if it existed, this is the way we’d have wanted it to look!) What a heavenly place, and to say we were enthusiastic would be quite an understatement. It seems we were in attendance during mating season. The butterflies and the birds seemed to be dancing many a two-step, and sometimes an orgy of 3 or 4!
Butterflies
As we entered the main butterfly exhibit, we were amazed at the exotic birds, flowers, plants, and waterfalls that created the different eco systems for the butterflies from around the world. The staff has a nursery and all butterflies are “grown” locally, and released in the wild to help the butterfly population recover from pesticides, changing climate and habitats. Early on in the exhibit, a butterfly landed on the back of Colin’s t-shirt and stayed with him for an hour or so. We walked from tropical areas to deciduous forests, grinning at all we saw.
Click on thumbnail below to see full-size gallery.
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- Owl Butterfly, disguised as a snake!
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- This Owl Butterfly loves Colin’s t-shirt
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- Magnificent Blue Morpho mating here.
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- Many Piano Key males fight over the fluttering female
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- One very persistent and strong male wins the mating game
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- Malachite butterfly
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- Giant Swallowtail
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- Magnificent white Tree Nymph
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- Mating Tree Nymphs
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- Chocolate Pansy
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- Tropical
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- Tropical
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- Rusted Tipped Page
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- Archduke
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- Plesseni mating couple
Birds
The exotic birds were thrilling to see, the colors magnificent.
Click on thumbnail below to see full-size gallery.
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- Gouldian Finch
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- Canary, Canary Islands
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- Zanzibar Bishop Weaver, Africa
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- Western S Africa
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- Bathing Ovenbird
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- Red-legged Honeycreeper
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- Red-checked Cordon-blue, Africa
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- Shafttail Finches, Australia
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- Shafttail Finch
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- Shafttail Finch
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- Parrot finches
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- Rainbow Lorikeets
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- Rainbow Macaw
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- Black & White Seedeater, Venezuela
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- Society Finch, N America
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- Society Finch
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- Tricolored Parrot Finch
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- Red Billed Firefinch
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- Red Billed Firefinch
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- Black-faced Dacnis, S America
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- Sea Green Parrot Finches
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- Sea Green Parrot Finch
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- Owl Finches
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- Lady Gouldian Finch
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- Lady Gouldian Finch (her and him)
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- Chinese Painted Quail
Flowers
The butterflies and birds need specific types of plants and flowers to thrive. To insure a healthy population of insects and birds, all of the vines, flowers, shrubs, and trees are grown in the in the Butterfly World nurseries.
Click on thumbnail below to see full-size gallery.
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- Passiflora ‘Byron Beauty’ Passifloraceae
Click below to see more detailed map.
Butterfly World, Pompano Beach, Florida
All so beautiful! Brings back memories of when I visited there as a kid. Hope to do it again when I’m a big kid like you guys.
From Cheryl: Funny, your dad mentioned his memory of taking you to Butterfly World when you were a little girl too. We’ve been having a great time. I want to be just like you when I grow up. I know you will have all your dreams come true, you deserve them.
I missed these from 10 days ago. Wow! How did you remember which ones were which? What a glorious place. So Ft. Lauderdale is not just for spring break kids and baseball players!
From Cheryl: Spring Break? Baseball? Not even a thought to those two activities. Glad you liked the pictures, and I think Colin already answered, but we cheated and had a book to help name the butterflies, otherwise, we would have just stated, Um, blue . . . Light Green . . . . Brown and White . . . . Love your comments, you give us such a lift!