more magic wings

This is part 2 of a series of posts about Magic Wings Butterfly Conservatory in South Deerfield, MA -- for the first in the series click here.

My grandmother and my two kids on a butterfly bench outside the main entrance to the Conservatory. In addition to the Conservatory itself, the buidling contains a restuarant, a snack bar, and a gift shop. There are gardens on the grounds too (we didn't get a chance to explore them, the kids were pretty beat after hanging around inside the Conservatory for a couple of hours), and they sell butterfly-attracting plants too. (In fact each of the kids picked out a small plant for us to plant here at home.)

Inside the conservatory, the butterflies are fed nectar at special feeding stations on brightly colored posts. (They sell these at the gift shop, too.) There are also many (many, MANY!) nectar-producing plants flowering throughout the area. (In fact, a big blossom from one landed on my head, smearing sticky nectar down my hair -- ew!!) In this photo, several Julia Butterfly feed from a feeding station.

Not all butterflies eat nectar -- some are fruit eaters, such as these Owl Butterflies, who are feeding at a fruit feeding station (mostly overripe bananas). Visitors aren't allowed to touch the feeding stations (for fear of contamination) nor are they able to bring food or drink into the Conservatory (for the same reason).

A little parrot of some sort in the treetops. (Actually, it's a type of Parakeet, but I'm not sure which species.) You can see the roof of the Conservatory in this photos -- the entire place is basically a giant climate-controled greenhouse. Butterflies are most active when it's sunny, and as you can see we were there on a cloudy day (in fact, in rained quite heavily while we were inside). Yet, I can't imagine more activity than what we saw, it was rather overwhelming to have hundreds of butterflies flying past you constantly!

A pretty Rice Paper butterfly feeding from one of the flowering plants inside the Conservatory. The local boy we talked to said that the Conservatory was started with just 10 butterflies -- the population has now grown to more than 4000. My mom said she visited when they were newly opened to the public, and that there wasn't nearly the amount of activity (or the space, they've expanded since then).