Monday, August 04, 2008

The summer has wings.....

Join me as I wonder through the butterfly paradise in Havelte in the north of Holland. Come and sit a while as this is a tropical climate and it is very hot in this greenhouse...



We enjoyed visiting this greenhouse full of exotic butterflies. I am no butterfly expert and am doing my best to give you the correct names of each. It was a challenge to photograph them as they take flight while you are walking around. I hope you enjoy the start of a new month of summer with me and perhaps it will even encourage you to go outside and see what butterflies are in your own garden.

The Owl butterfly (Caligo eurilochus) greeted us as we came in the door.

Do you know what this plant is? More later...


It is a magical sight to see with all the Rice Paper butterflies (Idea leuconoe) dancing around in front of your path. It is like they are bidding you to follow.


Finally one sat still long enough to get a photograph...



"I've watched you now a full half-hour;
Self-poised upon that yellow flower
And, little Butterfly!
IndeedI know not if you sleep or feed.
How motionless! - not frozen seas
More motionless! and then
What joy awaits you, when the breeze
Hath found you out among the trees,
And calls you forth again!"

~ William Wordsworth, "To a Butterfly"




Yes, it was a banana plant. They have them growing all through the butterfly greenhouse.


"Happiness is a butterfly, which when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you." ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne



Lemon Butterfly (Papilio demoleus).


A swallowtail butterfly (Papilio deiphobus rumanzovia).



Julia butterfly (Dryas iulia) is such a bright one to spot.


This Atreus owl butterfly (Caligo atreus) is the most amazing blue on the inside but we were unable to capture a photo of in with its wings open.


When we left the greenhouse, I bought this pretty bookmark to share with one of my readers. Jos snapped a photo of it before it was kindly giftwrapped for me to give away. All you have to do is leave a comment and perhaps tell me about a butterfly you see in your garden regularly. Everyone loves having a pretty bookmark to stich out of their favorite summer book. I will draw a winner by the end of this week. Please leave your email address if you do not have a blog so I can contact you if you win.

21 comments:

Elizabethd said...

Heidi, what a treat to see those beautiful butterflies up close. One of the ones that we find in our garden is the Yellow Swallowtail. It isnt very common and we are always excited if it visits!
That quote from Nathaniel Hawthorne is very true.

Ottilias Veranda said...

Hi and thanks for Your lovely comments on my blog! What a wonderful place to be with all the butterflies!! We have a lot of butterlies in our garden. One that is among the largest is a "mother of pearl butterfly" others are more common like yellow lemonbutterflies.

Liisa

Melissa said...

Heidi,

What a gorgeous post you created today.

Yes, you most definitely can borrow the quote from my blog. Anytime!

I do not know anything about butterfflies, but we do have yellow ones that fly about our lavender garden.

Our sweet dog Hoshi will just lie on the back porch and watch them fly by. She never even trys to chase them. I think she is in semi-retirement.

You are right, I will probably just decorate one room with British colonial accessories.

Have a wonderful Monday.

Melissa
Sunbonnet Cottage

Anonymous said...

Hi Heidi, I love your bookmark, it is very pretty! We see lots of white butterflies but I don't know their name ..

Robin C said...

Heidi,
I live in Virginia, US. We don't have as many butterflies as we used to when I was a little girl but one we see on occasion is the Yellow Swallowtail. It is so pretty with it's black and yellow wings.

Love the pictures of yours, thanks for sharing

Robin

JoAnn ( Scene Through My Eyes) said...

Lovely butterfly pictures. We have yellow swallowtail butterflies - which seem to be the most common, and some tiny blue ones that I don't know the name of.

Barbara said...

Heidi, I loved your photo's of the butterflies. As you know, we are starting a butterfly garden. We've had several, but I can't tell you what kind they are just yet. There is a butterfly garden in Branson, and we will be visiting it later this month.
Hugs,
Barbara/MO

Linda said...

Since I am afraid of butterflies (yes it is true), I would have freaked out in this place. Well, I wouldn't have gone in it in the first place - LOL!

Linda in VA

Andylynne said...

What a beautiful trip. I love Butterfly gardens. The last one I was in was in Maryland. I have Monarchs, Swallowtails, and many others I don't know the names of yet. I recently found a very old, guide to Butterflys and have been able to sort out a few from that. The most exciting thing is to have one land on you. Lighter than a feather and full of so much grace and beauty. I relly like the Rice Paper Butterflies you saw. My current fav at home is the back and white Swallowtail That comes in the afternoons.

durhama@issouri.edu

Andylynne said...

That would be durhama@missouri.edu

Happy@Home said...

I love butterflies and find them so fascinating to watch.

I have been seeing some in my backyard. Come on over to my blog and take a look.

Beautiful photos.

Anonymous said...

Gorgeous butterflies. Yesterday I posted a photo on our blog of the Swallowtail butterfly we saw in France. The buddleia were covered in them.
Margaret and Noreen

Anonymous said...

Hi Heidie,
Wonderful isn't it to se these butterflies so close by ! Did you ever go to the zoo in Emmen ? There is also a big glasshouse with a hugh amount of beautiful butterflies. I like the butterflies who have special marks and colors on their wings so it looks like a face and they can scare off other animals who like to eat butterflies. Nature is so smart !!!
Have a nice week, Janneke.

Tone said...

Hei :-)
So many wonderful butterflies!
It must have been a wonderful place to be!
Love your blog!
Have a nice day!
Tone

Melissa said...

Heidi,

Thank you for taking the tour of Sunbonnet Cottage, but guess what?

I just moved furniture around again. So now everything looks different.

Melissa

BittersweetPunkin said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
BittersweetPunkin said...

Love your photos!! I don't have a huge garden...just a few flower plots out in the front.
Hugs,
Robin

Tanya Willis Anderson said...

I've always loved watching the butterflies but we only get the itty bitty white ones flitting around our yard. The monarch ones are beautiful and your pics are lovely! I'm not much for the caterpillars - prefer them to change instead.

Tanya

Sweet Cottage Dreams said...

I am too late for your wonderful giveaway.....sad face. Heidi, these photos are lovely! I love the lacey butterflies. It reminds me of a battenburg lace pin my mother got for me in Hungary. Your photos are so wonderful!!!

xo
Becky

RoyalTLady said...

Heidi.

Such a wonderful shots to share with us. I have some of the smaller ones in my garden. They usually flitting by while I was watering the plants each morning.

Banana trees? When we fist moved to our current residence, we brought along the young trees that was cut to a much less heavy load to carry. Once planted, we noticed the unexpected visitors came by and simply torn them all after each "passing through" our compound.

Thus the trees did not grow until much later, they were finally thriving. Out of the three healthily grown, we only managed one full bunch of bananas. The rest were history...

Just a week ago, I notice this cheeky young monkey simply plucked away young bananas that were still whitish, threw them to the ground and now what's left are only two miserable tiers.

This is what I do with certain types of ripe bananas that are not meant to be eaten raw:

1) Fry them with fairly thick batter (rice flour, water, a pinch of salt, a bit of corn flour- mixed well and dip halved bananas into it, then deep fry till golden brown).
2) Steam with the jacket on.
3) Put on the covered pan with jackets on, cook till well done but not burnt.

suggestions 2 & 3 are healthier.

RoyalTLady said...

Hibiscus is our national flower...the red one.

I bought this same three layered orange hibiscus a month ago and proudly put it by the porch because the leaves were huge. The buds were plentiful.

Two days later the friendly monkeys came and kissed them away. Now I do not see them flowering anymore.

Where did you get the tuber for banana plants?