I followed the bird for a bit trying to get a picture but it never slowed down enough to get a good shot. However, the pursuit led me to a stand of flowers and a swarm of butterflies. I spent the next fifteen minutes or so trying to get THEM on camera too. I did manage to get one (above). It looked very much like a white and blue Monarch.
About that time the resort's guided nature tur began and we tagged along. The tour was in Chinese and Chunnan gave me a summary of each stop along the tour, but my attention wandered and I just spend most of the time taking pictures of interesting plants and animals.
We walked though both natural forests and tended gardens and each had its own style, but ferns and fern trees predominated.
The yellow ball at the center of this fern caught my eye. It's like a nest where the baby fern leaves start out all curled up then fold out and grow as they mature.
One of the other tour members spotted the drops of dew on this plant and as soon as he has snapped a few pics I stepped in for my turn.
No idea what this is but the striking color caught my attention.
I've seen these flowers in pots back home but here they grow wild. I actually saw many plants that I recognized as house plants growing wild here and in much larger sizes than we're used to back in the states. Fred could probably tell us what they all were but all I saw was interesting color and texture.
After he flitted in front of my face, I caught this little moth hiding in the foliage. He looks like he's made to blend in with his surroundings, but he was out of place on this particular plant and easy to spot.
I snapped a very nice pic of the yellow and green plant then noticed this large ugly snail munching away on the next stem so I got him on camera.
The guide called these lazy lillies because the blooms only open during the day.
Again, no idea what these puff ball flowers are, but they were really pretty and came in both red and white.
Butterfly Valley is an apt name for the area as it is home to a huge variety of the critters. The high season is March to June when the air is just chock full of them, but even now there were several different types flitting around. They have a butterfly enclosure here and this shot and the next few shots were all taken inside that. The black winged butter fly above was flitting everywhere almost like a humming bird and it was very hard to get a shot of him in one place.
The blue and white "Monarch" were the predominat breed but this yellow and while variety were abundant too. This one was more stationary than most and I soon saw why...
...as I watch it lay an egg on the underside of a leaf. You can see the egg here as the light green dot under the tip of the leaf at the center of this picture.
From that egg will hatch a caterpillar like this one. We saw several on the leaves nearby.
After leaving the butterfly enclosure were walked through more gardens and forests. At one point I saw an oddly shaped black shape among the flowers and peered in for a closer look. I found this little guy peering back at me. He never moved but he kept a close watch on my while I here and there to snap a few photos of him. This was the best.
The tour ended on of the two bridges spanning the river that runs along side the BVR property. This bridge is a bit like the Capilano suspension bridge we visited in Canada last year but did not sway quite as much since it was not nearly so long.
The tour guide snapped this pic of Chunnan and I at the bridgehead.
More interesting color and texture that caught my attention.
There are several trails here leading up into the mountains and eventually to a waterfall and another suspension bridge over the river. Chunnan and I started yo two of the trails but we turned back each time because the climbs, though paved with stones or timbers, were steep and slippery and the temperature and humidity drained us of energy all too quickly. Still, we made the attempts which os more than any of the other guests seemed interested doing.Later on we showered and spent more time in the hot springs. We leave Thursday but Chunnan will get in some more tub-time and I'm going back to the butterfly enclosure to see if I can snap some better pictures.
Beautiful pictures!!
ReplyDeleteI agree! For a pic taken on your phone, they are truly amazing. When I first glanced at the ugly snail, I could have sworn it was a cat curled up there. I had to look again when you said it was a snail. That red puff ball flower reminds me of the "Bottle Brush" plant by our front gate. In the spring it has flowers just like that only they are long (like a bottle brush) and not round as these "appear" to be. Now, the yellow ball at the cener of the fern... We have the same type of process working on the palms at our gate. Each year they form new leaves in the center similar to that only kind of pointy on the top and then they unfold into new leaves. Except that this year one of them stayed round like that and never opened. I kind of got to thinking of it as the stillborn child. I finally broke into it to see what it looked like inside and, although there do appear to be a few leaves, there are also some large pistol and stamen like things such as flowers have. It's really weird. So I don't know what is ever going to become of that one. Glad you'e enjoying your trip and thanks for sharing it so vividly with us!
ReplyDeleteAlmost all of the pics taken at the BVR were taken with a small 12 megapixel camera. It only has a 3x optical zoom, though, so zooming in for the close shots gets really pixelated, still, most shots are good enough for me. Shu-Min is using a powerful Canon SLR and the shots he has taken have been great. He said he's going to give me a copy of his pics so I'll have even more to share eventually. He would have made some amazing shot if he had been at the BVR with us.
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