Our Florida Anniversary at Butterfly World

It’s hard to believe, but Saturday (9/1) was the two-year anniversary of our move to Florida. I thought we should mark the occasion with something unique. An adventure plucked from my list of “things to do in Florida.” For some reason, Butterfly World in Coconut Creek was the idea that came to mind. I can’t even remember how or where I’d heard about it, but someone thought highly enough of it for me to add it to my list.

Tim wasn’t thrilled. He said it wouldn’t be his first choice. In fact, he said he didn’t want to go. But I was persistent and persuasive, and ultimately he agreed, not just because he loves me, but because he knows how stubborn I can be.

In addition to what you’d expect at Butterfly World, namely butterflies (20,000 of them according to Wikipedia), the aviaries also feature beautiful and exotic birds: finches, honey creepers, hummingbirds, and more. The facility is home to a bug zoo, an insect museum, a laboratory, a nursery of butterfly plants, and the largest collection of passion flower vines in the world. It was surprisingly cool. And Tim admitted, once we were there, that it was indeed cooler than he had expected.

Here are a few shots…

A small sampling of the passion flowers.

This bird below is the adorable Red-legged Honey Creeper.

This finch was quite content to sit on this pretty woman’s head, plucking at her wavy hair with its bright orange beak. I tried waving my hair about, but didn’t find any takers.

This little butterfly seems to have lost an antenna.
You’ve probably noticed I haven’t blogged in quite some time. About a year. I’ve been working on other projects, and found the blog was more distracting than inspiring, so I abandoned it.

But it’s been calling to me lately for some reason, so I thought I’d try again, but maybe focus more on photography than writing. I’m hoping it will be less time consuming, and will get me shooting again with more than just my iPhone. We’ll see…