BVR Day 3

Thursday, Thanksgiving, and our last day at the Butterfly Valley Resort. Less than half a day, really, since we had to catch the train back to Taipei at noon. After breakfast Chunnan went for another bubble bath since the hot springs didn't open until 1pm and I went on a photo safari.
We found the Koi Pond last night so I went back this morning to take pics and feed the koi

As soon as the food hit the water they became a writhing roiling mass of mouths trying to find and gulp down the little fish pellets. I bought two food packs and used the first to get photos and the second to get a video. I'll post that video later.

Here another shot of the rainforest just a few steps off the manicured paths.

Another colorful flower that caught my attention.

There was a stand of tall trees neat the south end of the property that had these softball-sized green fruit hanging way out of reach and a lot of fruit scattered on the ground around the base of the trees. I thought they might be guavas, but I'm not sure and Chunnan has not seen the picture yet to give me his opinion.

I went to these yellow flowers to shoot the blossoms, but instead found these odd ands swarming all over the blooms. They were about the size of the little black ants we're all used to seeing but their thoraxes were rotated 180 degrees and curved up over their bodies, almost like scorpion tails. They looked perfectly poised to be stingers so I made sure not to get too close.

Here's a pic of the puff ball flower in white. You can see what I assume are the seeds at the center more clearly here.

I found this pitcher plant growing in the butterfly enclosure. This is a carnivorous plant. The bulb is hollow and holds a sweet smelling digestive fluid. When flies or other insects go in to investigate they get trapped in the fluid and...well...digested.

The snails were out in full force this morning. Seemed like every plant I looked at had at least one snail on it...this one had more than it's share.

This brightly colored bug caught my attention and since it was the only beetle I'd seen I snapped it's portrait.

Most of my time was spent in the butterfly enclosure trying to get snaps of as many different types as I could. Here are a few of the better pics.

I like the feather-like wings on this one.

This is the hummingbird-like one I mentioned in the last post. It's upper wings hardly ever stopped moving. I got lucky here and found one that was resting.

A small swarm of white winged butterflies fluttered around my head then all alighted on the same flower. I got several pics of them as they flitted back and forth among these blossoms but this one was my favorite. The middle one has a damaged right wing.

Here is one of them up close.

This guy taunted me all morning. He would flutter around and then shoot off in different directions before I could get a focus on him. He finally settled down at the very top of a tall shrub and I had to stand on tip-toes and hold my camera high up to get this picture of him.

Later he finally agreed to do his thing at a more reasonable height but he was hyperactive and moved around so fast that I was hardly able to zero in on him before he was off again. Of the dozen or so pics I snapped this was the clearest. His red body and interesting wing design were quite beautiful.

On the opposite end of the "active scale" this guy found a perch he liked and promptly went to sleep. He was in a perfect location for me to get several really up-close shots. I'f I'd had a tripod these would have been much better, but for handheld on extreme close-up, they're not too bad.

I really liked his bright yellow and red body.

You can make out all of the details here...really amazing.

That about wraps it up for the Butterfly Valley Resort.

We got a ride to the train station from the resort's shuttle bus. We walked around the town a little to find a place to eat and saw this little shop with some locals coming out with meals to go so we popped in and put in an order for pork and rice. We were the only ones in the shop but as soon as we sat down to wait for our meal the place was flooded with locals or people also waiting for the train. When our food arrived and I started to eat it (with chop sticks) one of the locals remarked to Chunnan that he was surprised to see a white guy able to use chop sticks. I get that a lot, actually. He was tickled and I imagine that I was the top gossip in the little town that day.

The train ride was long and boring but the scenery was nice. This bridge caught my eye on the trip down to the BVR but I was not ready for it so missed the shot. This time I guess I lucked out because I was able to get several snaps of it as the train went by. This was the clearest. It seemed like most of the rivers we crossed were about 90% dry. I don't know if there's been a drought lately or if there are dams further up river.

We had dinner at Cher's place and then went to see 2012 at the theater. It was in English with Chinese subtitles so it was easy for me. Chunnan said he listened to the English since the subtitles went by too fast for him to keep up.

Friday...Today we're going to a buffet lunch and then I think we're heading back to the local hot spring and maybe back to the night market later on. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!