Buttaflies
Today marks our fourth day in Key West which means this is our last day before moving to our second spot down here on Cudjoe Key. While our parents checked into our second place, my sister and I went to the Key West Butterfly Conservatory. It was pretty hot outside and looked cloudy which made this a great day to go to the conservatory which was air conditioned (mostly) and indoors.
I didn’t really know what to expect – we read some reviews on Google to see what people were saying but everything people said was to the effect of, “Great! Go here everytime we vacation. Love it!” While that sounds like a good review it really didn’t leave me with any idea of what the place had. So, I guess if you’re reading this and you haven’t been to the butterfly conservatory – here is some more info!
When you get to the building you enter through the gift shop. It costs a few bucks to get in which is fine given the expense of air conditioning this place must cost a fortune without even taking care of the plants/butterflies! It was nice and cool inside. Once you pay admission you enter through a large (still air conditioned) room where they have TV’s narrating the life-cycle of the butterflies while highlighting how different species exhibit different traits. There was large glass cases in the center of the room with caterpillars of exotic types of butterflies. I’ve never seen caterpillars like this so that was exciting!
Once through this room you enter the conservatory itself. Its a humid greenhouse with tons of plants, trees, birds, and butterflies. I figured I’d see a couple dozen of them – wow was I wrong. There had to be hundreds if not thousands of butterflies in this green house. They were constantly flying around – the ones that immediately stood out were these bright blue ones. I couldn’t find any that were sitting on a tree – that was because the bright blue butterflies flying around were only blue when their wings were open. When they were closed, the butterfly was a brown/black. Here are some images of butterflies:
The pictures above only hint of the number of butterflies in the greenhouse. In fact, there were so many that you had to go into an intermediate room before leaving so that you could look at yourself in mirrors and make sure butterflies weren’t on you trying to escape!
In addition to the butterflies were some really neat birds. I managed to get some pictures of them but they are small warbler types and very fast fliers – the room was small so panning the birds was out of question. Here are some “OK” shots of the birds:
And finally, the plants – there were so many crazy looking plants. I have been to Longwood Gardens here in the Northeast and they have some exotic plants. This conservatory, though, had some plants that I have never seen before – some were pretty strange looking:
After we made our way through the conservatory we were ready to head on out and grab lunch and then boom – thunderstorm! It wasn’t too long waiting – storms in the Keys come and go pretty quickly. We waited it out, I shot a pic of leaf with rain collected on it since I was in a plant-y nature-y sort of mood, and then we went to the Southernmost Beach Cafe and grabbed lunch!
Next stop – Cudjoe Key for 9 days! It’s a little more remote and relaxed than Key West which is a nice change of pace. We liked walking Duval Street almost every night as well as listening to music, shopping, etc., but I was dying to go fishing, snorkeling, and seeing more beaches!