This morning, I set off for the Coffs Harbour Butterfly House.  It was $18 to get in, and I admit I was wondering if it was worth it.  Short answer: yes.  Long answer: see below.

First, to set the scene – these are some photos I took of the butterfly house itself.  This is what you see when you first come in the double-layered door:

Butterflies were flitting about everywhere.  I took a video to try to convey it:

 

There was a very well-established path, but you still had to watch your step, just in case butterflies were resting on the ground.   The path curved around little islands of vegetation, which were roped off:

It was very hot in the butterfly house – the temperature is good for the butterflies, but I could feel sweat starting to drip down my back within the first few minutes.  It was cooler by the little pond in the centre:

There were little fish in the pond, really tiny ones, probably just to keep it clean.  There were plenty of butterflies around the pond as well:

 

And butterflies weren’t the only inhabitants!  I turned a corner of the path and found this Peaceful Dove in front of me:

And later, I encountered a Diamond Dove:

There was also a small group of quail in the undergrowth.  They had chicks as well:

I found a silver one:

I took video as well, of course.  I wasn’t the only one there, so there’ll be quite a few background voices in some of them.  First, these are just a few of the quails and their chicks pecking around for food:

 

This one isn’t quite as close-up as the others, but it has the benefit of the quail freaking out a little as butterflies dart in front of it, and that made me laugh:

 

They had some caterpillars on display, too:

Now I’ve drawn out your anticipation long enough – you came here for butterflies, so here are the butterflies.  I took tons of photos, which was great because it meant I could whittle them down to the very best ones.

These are the ones I took of the Orange Lacewing butterflies:

As you can see from that last picture, the underside to their wings is very different to the top.  Without that photo, I don’t think I’d ever have figured out what these were:

That colourful platform in the first one is a feeder – the butterflies just stick their tongues down those little holes and slurp up what I assume is basically sugar water.  They also had sliced oranges and flowers out for them to feed on, which you guys will see in other photos.

These are Large (common) Grass Yellow butterflies:

These are actually the only photos I took of this species.  They were very active, always fluttering around and rarely settling for more than a moment or two.  The top of their wings was much paler than the underside, and you can just see little flashes of it in this video:

 

Next up, the Varied Eggfly.  This is the male:

I snapped that while he was sitting on the leaf and just gently opening and closing his wings.  I took some video, too:

 

I like the way that iridescent spot on the top of his wing seems to expand and contract as it catches the light.  Those ‘egg-shaped’ spots are what the species is named for.

There were plenty of these guys fluttering around, too – apparently, the males are territorial and will engage in aerial battles to defend said territory.  The female of the species looks very different:

According to the informative sign, each female has a unique pattern on her wings.

This is the Lurcher (no, not like the Adams Family):

I particularly like that one on the window, where you can see the sunlight shining through the yellow patches of its wings.

Fun fact time!  Lurchers can live for up to nine months, and often hibernate during the winter.

Now this one is probably familiar to those back home – the Monarch Butterfly:

I videoed two of them feeding on some flowers – check it out!  You can actually see them stick their tongues in and really go to town:

 

Up next is the Orchard Swallowtail, and these are all males – I didn’t actually see a female.  That’s not to say they weren’t there, though; I could have easily missed them.

I got a video of one drinking from the feeders:

 

These ones are known as Cruisers, and it’s the males up first:

That last one was in a corner of the path, just sunning itself.  I took some video before it fluttered off:

 

This is what a female Cruiser looks like:

I also managed to snag a ‘nature documentary’ kind of shot – a male with a female:

I took some video as well:

 

I’m not sure why he’s pestering her so much.  It could be a mating thing, or maybe she’s just taken his favourite spot and he’s trying to make her move – it could go either way.

Finally, this enormous butterfly is a female Cairns Birdwing:

I didn’t see any males – they have bright green on their wings – but it’s likely their time had passed.  Females live a little longer, and the ones I saw looked a little ragged anyway.

Now that everyone knows what the various species look like, I’m going to give you a bunch of general photos and videos I took before I got far too hot and sweaty to stick around.

I mentioned earlier there were several platforms with sliced oranges, which seemed to be quite popular among the butterflies:

I even took some video of the first one I saw:

 

The little pots of flowers outnumbered the feeding stations, though – it seemed like there was one around every corner:

I had to check before I touched any flat surface, because the butterflies would rest anywhere.  Here are two on a post:

Now, the signs at the door mention that butterflies might land on you if you’re wearing colourful clothes, and this was what I happened to put on that day:

As you can imagine, they rather liked me, and seemed especially fond of my hair.  Most of them didn’t stay for long – once they realised I wasn’t actually a flower I guess they felt cheated – and it was hard to take a picture because they often flew off as soon as I moved.  But I managed to record this female varied eggfly that fluttered onto my leg and then just sat there, fanning her wings for a while:

Eventually, when I felt like I was starting to come close to drowning in my own sweat (you’re welcome for that mental image), I stepped out into a little air-conditioned display room.  It wasn’t particularly large, but it had some interesting insects in there.

This is the caterpillar of the Hercules moth:

I even took a video:

 

There’s no particular reason for the video, I just like the way it steadily munches through the leaf.

This is a spiny leaf insect:

I think we can all figure out how it got that name.

And this is a rainbow stag beetle:

Not quite ‘rainbow’, but certainly more colours than your average stag beetle.  I really love its iridescent shell.

Now, this one may be hard to see, because of the reflection of the glass, but I took it looking into a glass case of various stick insects.  I don’t know if you can make it out, but there’s a large, green stick insect in the centre of the photo, and it has a smaller, brown one on top of it.

It’s not a very good photo, but I wanted to record the stick insect piggy-back.

I was quite thirsty after the heat of the butterfly house, so I stopped in the little café attached to it for a cold drink:

No air-con, but it did get a nice breeze.  The café didn’t offer much in terms of main meals, so I actually went back to the botanical gardens for lunch, in this café:

It’s run by volunteers, and the profits go to the gardens, which I admit was a big factor in my decision to have lunch there rather than back at Turtle Shell.  The volunteers when I got there were two old ladies, who acted very much like stereotypical grandmothers – when one of them brought my food out to me she actually said, “Here you are, sweetie”.

I ordered chicken, cheese and avocado on focaccia, which was an experiment for me because I wasn’t familiar with focaccia.  Now, I know it’s pizza-base-like bread baked with rosemary, and it’s delicious!