Brookside Gardens – Butterflies and more
/And there were many other kinds of butterflies that posed for a picture at handy times.
And then there is the caterpillar house. Most of the caterpillars that were in the house during June were Julia Longwing or Zebra Longwing; both use passion flower as the host plant for their caterpillars.
There were butterflies outside in the gardens too – mostly tiger swallowtails and skippers.
The bees enjoy the flowers too.
Sometimes a dragonfly would sit for long enough to be photographed.
Birds like the gardens. A goldfinch and cardinal were near the conservatory one morning before my shift. I also saw a catbird that same morning but it flew away before I could get a photograph.
But the high point of the animals at Brookside was a box turtle! I had just exited my car and saw it emerge from a bed at the side of the conservatory and walk across the concrete in front of the service door to the north conservatory.
It continued until it was close to the seal between the two doors then looked up like it expected the door to open. I wondered if it had – sometime in its life – spent some time inside the conservatory.