Butterfly in the Sky

On Saturday, Adam was busy working at home, so I decided to head up to Magic Wings Butterfly Conservatory. It's only $12 admission for adults and worth every penny.

The place is actually quite large and has a restaurant attached. When you walk in, you're greeted by these giant butterfly kites that hang from the ceiling. The day I went, I had to purchase my ticket in the gift shop. The entrance to the conservatory was through a door in the gift shop as well.

Once inside, there are literally butterflies everywhere. It's amazing. They fly in front of your face, they land on you, they hitchhike around the place on your back. It's certainly not a place to visit if you're terrified of bugs. There were definitely a few kids screaming their lungs off. What can I say, it was a busy day.

The cool thing about the place is that there are so many different types of butterflies. There were tons of blue morphos (although, they never wanted to sit still enough to get a picture with their wings open, the owl eye butterfly below is one), zebra longwings, Cairns birdwing, glasswing butterfly, cracker butterfly, and the Malachite just to name a few.

There was also a ton of pupas transforming behind a glass case, waiting for their turn to become the next group to entertain guests, a koi pond with a small waterfall, and some adorable baby quails walking around.

I even got a self portrait in!

In addition to the butterflies and other animals I mentioned before, there were also a few lizards in cages, one of which can be seen below (if you can find it!).

The following shot was probably my favorite of the day. I loved that the butterfly's wings became bokeh. So pretty.

While I was walking around, this adorable little girl started talking to me and pointing out all the different butterflies to me, which was cute and helpful as I almost missed a few interesting ones! Thanks little girl for being so helpful! :)

At one point I happened to catch a butterfly using his proboscis to take some nectar from a flower. It was so cool to see this happen!

If you're visiting (or living in) Western Mass and you haven't been to Magic Wings, I totally recommend it. It's not a whole day kind of thing, but there's so much else to do out here you'll definitely find something else to take up the rest of the day! Plus your hand stamp is good for multiple trips during the same day so you can leave and come back if it's too busy or you need a change of scenery.