Vancouver Island: Butterfly Gardens

On Friday, June 26th, Delle and I set off on an overnight trip see a few sights on Vancouver Island. Here are some photos from the picturesque 1.5-hour ferry ride from Tsawwassen to Swartz Bay...







Our first destination was the Victoria Butterfly Gardens (which are not actually in Victoria - they are on the same road as the Butchart Gardens, about half an hour from Victoria).





The Butterfly Gardens aren't huge, but they are well worth a visit - especially if you either love butterflies or enjoy having very photogenic subjects to photograph close-up! We ended up spending a few hours there, which was not very well thought out given that it left us LESS time to see the 55-acre Butchart Gardens (our next destination) than we had taken at the 0.27-acre Butterfly Gardens!!









Here are some of my favourite butterfly shots (more in the corresponding Picasa album)...

















And my favourite butterfly...





The most elusive butterfly was a large blue-winged one. It's wings were brown with four big "eyes" on the outside, but on the inside they were a brilliant shade of blue. There were plenty of them flying around, but the moment they landed they would close their wings, so we (and others) spent ages with our cameras trained on their stubbornly-closed wings, waiting for the occasional split-second wing-flap they would teasingly engage in!

Following are the best photos I managed to get of them: the outside of one's wings, blue blurs near Delle's dress, a few seconds of a rare open-wing display by one up near the roof, and a patience-rewarding snap of a wing-flap while one was fighting with a moth in a citrus feeder (the moth is in the foreground and looks similar to the outside of the blue butterfly's wings, except it only has one main "eye")...









Here's some of the other wildlife in the gardens...















The other fascinating thing at the gardens was the display case of chrysalides (plural form of chrysalis - I checked!). By the end of our visit, one or two butterflies had emerged. I just loved how intricate the different types of crysalis were - nature is incredible!!







And that was the Victoria Butterfly Gardens - recommended! :)