Flying Butters

Kuala Lumpur, December 26th 2010

First destination of the day: KL Butterfly Park. Breakfast at KL Sentral's McDonald, hop on Hop-On Hop-Off, hop off at Taman Tasik Perdana, follow the sign to Butterfly Park, and...there you are! Butterflies flew in front of my face. No need to seek or search. They were just everywhere.

The credit for this is to Gabe who had such a good eye that he immediately was aware that there was a butterfly coming out from its cocoon. It was my very first time witnessing such a miracle. I just stood behind the glass box and be transfixed. Only when the whole body was out already, I remembered to take pictures. Actually I had witnessed the process from when the cocoon had just cracked open. Ah... I pray that I will get a second chance to capture the complete process of this miracle.

How the butterfly unfolded its wings were like unfolding a compact umbrella. Then bit by bit the wings straightened. Edge by edge. The process took longer that I had always thought. The first photo in the collage above was shot at 8:25 and the fourth one was at 8:41. When I came back and made this shot at 10:28,

the butterfly was still clinging to its cocoon. I looked around hoping for another cocoon to hatch, but found none.

Interestingly, some cocoons have a lid, like a bottle.

I found a butterfly with silvery wings. See how the color of the flower petals reflects on the underside of the wing. The underside becomes orange.

Now the underside of the wing looks reddish, because the flower color is red.

Aha! This is "automidori"!

Blue and green, my favorite color!

The variety of the species was vast. I met some that I had never seen before.

At around 12:00 PM the park became crowded with visitors. Every time I was just about to press the shutter button, someone would pass by and the butterfly would fly away. Children ran up and down excitedly, butterflies flew up and down frantically. I entered the canteen, chilled down with an ice cone, and proceeded to KL Bird Park.