Wow! Did I have fun today! The San Diego Safari Park had their spring Butterfly Encounter and this was the first year I was home to see it. The butterflies flew around you in an open-air aviary. (Please click to enlarge).
We all were mesmerized. I was blown away by how gentle the little children were, cupping their hands to protect the landing butterflies.
See for yourself, the butterflies were ethereal!
The flowers were pretty amazing too~
It was wonderful to be reminded how much children naturally love our planet’s creatures.
The butterflies reminded me of the ones I saw in Iguazu Falls who loved to hitch rides on humans.
You had to be inspected before you left to make sure you weren’t carrying out a hitchiker!
They were not the least bit afraid.
What an amazing experience!
I almost made it out with this hitchiker on me!
Cheers to you from our planet’s amazing flying flowers~
What gorgeous colours they all are.
Aren’t they incredible! What a sensory treat!
They are beautiful. You caught the brilliance of their hues so will.
Thank you sincerely but they get the credit, gorgeous flutterbyes!
🙂 well thanks for sharing so I could see.
Breathtaking!
And so gentle!
Fantastic work with the macro! Great composition!
Gorgeous!
So wonderful to see them flying and feasting!
Great captures!
Merci beaucoup!
Absolutely gorgeous – that first shot is so crisp. I feel like I can reach out and encourage that orange butterfly to land on my hand. It must have been exhilarating to see these beautiful critters up close…
If you reached out, he would have landed on your hand, and stayed there too! Wonderful! Thank you so much~
This is so wonderful:)
As are you my friend~
These are perhaps the most outstanding butterflies I’ve ever seen. So many varieties. And such color. So glad you were able to get by — we’ve all profited from your experience!
Oh that is incredibly sweet and so very appreciated!
Wow cool.. So delicate:)
Aren’t they magnificient! Thank you~
il nostro mondo meraviglioso!!!! di quanta bellezza ci circondaa! grazie infinite per questi scastti favolosi
buon giorno!
our wonderful world!!!! how much beauty there circondaa! Thank you so much for these fabulous scastti
🙂
Sì, viviamo in un mondo pieno di bellissime creature e figli meravigliosi! Grazie amico mio!
Your photos are so pretty. Butterflies are stunning creatures. Their beauty is so unique.
What a lovely comment! Thank you~
you are so welcome:)
Fantastic image!
Mil grazi! 🙂
outstending!
Vielen danke!
Cindy these beautiful butterflies rival the gorgeous flowers you always share…I feel so blessed tonight because I love butterflies and they have inspired many poems for me! Thanks for sharing the pictures they are so very beautiful! God bless!
Ahhhhh! How perfectly wonderful, you and your beautiful poems! Blessings to you my friend~
I wonder if the feeling I have looking at these is a drop in the bucket compared to how you must have felt to be there? Cindy, I had to remember to breath while looking at your exquisite photos of these beautiful painted creatures. Thank you times 10!
P
Awwww, kind and thoughtful sentiments like these are what makes blogging so wonderfully rewarding! Thank you my friend and hugz~
You are more than welcome…those images are still on my mind. Hugz back.
P
Wonderful photos of beautiful butterflies. Thanks for sharing these. I am a little envious of the opportunity to experience something like this.
I have to admit I was wondering why I have never managed to be home for the exhibit before. It was simply incredible. Some times when you travel a lot you miss the wonders right under your nose~
Just beautiful Cindy. What a combo, flowers and butterflies…WOW
That’s pretty much all it takes for me to be in bliss!!!
Totally amazing, Cindy. That dark one with the blue-shot wings is unbelievable 🙂
Gorgeous isn’t he! What an incredible world we live in~
Without a doubt, this is the most stunning set of butterflies photographs I’ve seen taken at one “session”. Tip of the cap to you, Cindy.
Ahhhh, so incredibly kind and appreciated!
Wow, wonderful shots!
Thanks! It would be pretty hard though not to take a good shot of these amazingly photogenic beauties~
Reblogged this on Sacred Wolf .
Between the flowers and the butterflies I don’t know which one is prettier,I think they both are.
I am going to agree with you on this, it was beautiful sensory overload! The landscaper is a genius!
Awesome pictures of those beautiful creatures!
Merci beaucoup my friend~
I love flutterbys! We went to a butterfly place in St. Thomas, oh what beautiful flying flowers they have down there. I learned a lot from talking to the keepers. The lil buggers do like to sit on humans. . Maybe cuz we’re warm? Anyway. Great photos! I love how you can see the pattern in the eyes!
I certainly saw and photographed a lot of incredible butterfies in the Caribbean, but a butterfly place there? Must have been outstanding~
blessings Cindy, a heavenly post, thank goodness for butterflies, they have so much to teach us 🙂
I always get this sense they are spiritual messengers, something heavenly and divine, come to cheers us up and say ‘life is beautiful’~
yes indeed, and to show us how life does not end but simply transforms constantly 🙂
Wonderful point!! Thank you for reminding me~
🙂 heart to heart Cindy
What an experience. Beautifully narrated and illustrated 🙂
So kind and so appreciated~
Gorgeous. Love the expression, flying flowers. And, yes, how sweetly the little ones hold the butterflies.
Considering all the bad news in the media everyday about the youth of America, it was so wonderful to be reminded of the incredible sweetness of children.
And I was also reminded of our wonderful young ones yesterday when I read this by Tomie dePaola, in his author’s note on The Legend of the Bluebonnet; “….She -Who-Is-Alone’s act of thrusting her beloved doll into the fire to save her people represents the decisive sort of action that many young people are capable of, the kind of selfless action that creates miracles.”
Lovely.
They truly are! Thank you~
Unbelievable wonderful! Never seen before so beautiful butterflies. Thank you so much for showing.
Wow, so neat that you were able to witness them this year – beautiful little creatures.
About time I went! I think I may go back and focus on the Blue Morphos!!
Lovely pics Cindy – I especially like the top one. Great detail! RH
Thank you, stupendous creature isn’t he!
What magnificence…
Remember the days when people saw butterflies, caught them and pinned them to a board? Ugh…..This was perfection!
This was wonderful to see. I forgot how beautiful they are—and so many kinds. They are truly a marvel of nature.
They are indeed and so utterly benign! Pollinaters that look like flowers~
Thank you! I so love butterflies. I love them so much I’ve allowed milkweed to run rampant in my garden for the monarch butterflies. Your photos are breathtaking:D
Yep. We are kindred spirits. A basic query of planting for me is, will it attract flutterbyes??
These are exquisite photos of your aptly named ‘flying flowers’!
Awww, so kind!
Very beautiful and varied butterflies, Cindy. Ontario has a butterfly conservancy only 7 miles from my house and I rarely go. It is a wonderful place though.
Oh please go!! I would so love to see your photos!
Great photographs, what fun.
It was purely joyful! Plus I had ice cream afterwards! Laughing…..life is good!
Life is good whenever there is ice cream close by. 😀
My thoughts exactly. There was this little boy who said to his mom, “There’s a lady having ice cream BEFORE lunch!”
Mom says, “I know.”
Boy, “I want ice cream before lunch.”
Mom says, “No.”
Boy, “That lady is……..”
Laughing. It took all my restraint not to buy the kid an ice-cream~
How wonderful.. I would love to visit a butterfly conservatory sometime. I think it would be magical.
It is, and was, and I hope you do!
I’ve never seen butterflies this close! Too beautiful, Cindy!
You have to visit! I would love to see your photos!
Have seen your exquisite photos, I need not to bring my camera 🙂 Yep, I mentioned to my husband the other day that the park is on our list.
Can’t wait to see YOUR photos!
These are such amazing shots Cindy. My jaw was dropping as i was scrolling down. Very beautiful work.
Awww, so encouraging and so motivating! Mil grazi~
You are very welcome!
Oh wow, I would love to visit this place! It’s really something that the butterflies grow so used to people. As always, beautiful photographs, Cindy.
Thank you ma deah’ and cheers to you~
I love the title — “Flying Flowers” — you chose; it is so apt! Wonderful photos!
Just so happy you enjoyed and commented! Cheers to you~
Love this! And the title is so perfect. “Flying flowers” … lovely.
Awww gracias mi amigo~
Amazing photos! 🙂
Very happy you like them & thanks so much for stopping by~
Cindy, these are spectacular — thanks for sharing them here!
Wonderful beauty! More pins for my Pinterest! Thank you, Cindy!
Gosh!!
What fun that must’ve been! You really captured the essence of these beautiful creatures. Thank you for sharing such loveliness.
Thank you for appreciating!
Its joy to look at these pictures.Jalal
Yay!! Thank you my friend~
I am amazed at how many different and vivid colors there are on your beautiful flying flowers pics! Sweet!! Hugz Lisa and Bear
There were even more, but I had to set some limits. It was hard!
Reblogged this on Spirit In Action and commented:
Thank you Cindy! I love butterflies. Before we had a chemical crazy neighbor here, a few other neighbors and I had butterfly gardens and we had crowds of them all the time. Once the herbicides and pesticides started to be applied all the time they mostly disappeared.
Oh how sad! You gotta love the catepillars if you love the butterflies! Thank you my friend and hugz~
I love them all:-) and eventually those of us with lots of butterfly love will prevail and they will come back. Thank you for sharing your beautiful visions of nature with us!
I wonder how we can get Cindy’s photos to your neighbor to persuade the person to nurture the yard rather than fight with it.
What a good idea! I’m up for any plan……
The poison loving people were shown the butterflies and pointed out the larval plants-and they proceeded to specifically poison them even to actually using herbicides on blooming garden plants and killing them:-( Like Monsanto itself, it appears some of its customers are just not into life/living things, beauty or community and responsibility. I feel more hopeful than I did tho since many other people are now taking up butterfly gardens and permaculture in our area. Eventually the Monsanto glee club crowd will be outnumbered and overtaken by laws banning destructive poisons.
Oh! I have known people like that! I am so sorry for you, to be living so closely with people who think that they thrive on domination. I am relieved that you see permaculture and butterfly gardens surrounding them, and possibly putting them “out of business” so to speak. Then, they can dominate by being the best growers of organic berries 🙂
Always such hope and color in your postings. They show such gentle beauty of life.
So happy you see and appreciate it my friend! Cheers & thank you~
Wow what an awesome experience, I bet it does wonders for your health as well – slows down the heart rate and probably lowers the blood pressure. Nature has wonderful healing powers and there’s so much beauty too!
Yes indeed! It has always had a profoundly calming effect on me. It’s hard to worry to much when you are surrounded by such productive wildlife busily and happily going about their business. Hope your hubby and you spend some healing time in nature when he’s up and ready. Hugz to you my friend~
The butterflies are beautiful. I’m amazed how they sat on the children’s hands.
Lovely isn’t it? The gentle rapture on the face of the children was priceless but I didn’t photograph them because I didn’t have their parent’s permission~
Oh, Cindy, how glorious. The black and white one on the pink flower is my favorite!
Lovely isn’t he/she!! Thank you my friend~
You sure live in a beautiful place!
Hi Cindy,
Pictures of the butterflies are beautiful and I love ’em, but I’ve always found that as good as the picture may be, it pales in comparison to seeing the real thing up close and natural. Hugs, Cuz !
Yes indeed and best of all in the wild like in Iguazu. When they hitched a ride on me, I felt doubly blessed! Hugz back cuz~
wow!
That is what I thought!
Wow! If you did not tell us that these were in a live butterfly exhibit I would have thought that you had amazing luck with the flowers and buttersflies together. The photos are stuning still. In a recent conversation with someone who enjoys nature photography, he said that birds and butterflies will tend to come back to which ever flower/branch they were one. Rather than chasing them around, he set up his equipment where they are then waits for them to return. Currently, our temperatures have just risen enough for the flies to hatch from all the manure we add to our garden plots. They are doing their job breaking down the soil, but certainly obnoxious when they come into the cabin. Sorry, that I have been abscent recently. Trying to catch up on garden prep work after this winter.
Oscar
Yes, I finally figured this out in the exhibit. Park by the busy flower and don’t move. It worked! I remember being beseiged by flies in a cabin in Capitol Reef. Not fun at all. No problem about being absent. We wait for you~
What an amazing experience and you’ve captured it beautifully, Cindy.
Merci beaucoup Linda~
This is utterly beautiful! I loved the blue-black one. Nature has limitless variations and limitless flights of imagination!
Yes and a wonder to behold! So happy you enjoyed~
Beyond beautiful!
Flying boquets!! Mil grazi~
Beautiful! I think butterflies are the closest things to fairies we can actually see. These are fabulous photos!!
Oh that summarizes them perfectly! From now on they are Flying Fairies! Thanks~
polka dotted eyeballs!! Why don’t WE get polka dotted eyeballs! Sakes alive, I have never seen such close ups of these magick creatures–I believe they are angels, for sure. I just can’t imagine how you’ve done this–butterfly whisperer, maybe? bzz-bzz…
Gosh. I skim and I scan, and it’s just like candy…>!<
Oooooh! Now Polka Dot Eyes would have been the BEST title for this post!
Really amazing shots! Beautiful, Cindy!
Awwww, thank you~
Unbelievably beautiful colours and images, Cindy. What a wonderful park that must be to visit. 🙂
Thank you my friend and I hope you visit soon!
a magic world! Thank you to share.
Merci beaucoup mon ami~
Great photos. I especially like the first one (the eyes are amazing).
Our granddaughter can be pretty hyper when she visits us here on the farm. But she loves butterflies so much that when she’s at the butterfly bushes she can play for hours. Children’s natural love for beautiful creatures is a wonderful thing to see.
It is a shame that we teach that wonder out of children. It is so good to reclaim it! You grandaughter sounds delightful. Cheers to you and thanks for stopping by~
I love planting specific species of plants in my garden to attract the butterflies. Love these photos outstanding job! So hard, we are moving and I will not be able to take all of my flowers. Starting over again… Melody
Oh to have to move away from your flowers, is difficult indeed! The only solace is the new ones you can plant! Cheers to you & thank you~
Starting over is a good thing.
Reblogged this on Donkey Whisperer Farm Blog and commented:
Love to plant specific plants to attract the butterflies in my garden!
This is very thoughtful of you and so very appreciated! Merci beaucoup~
Goregous!! I do this too! So peaceful~
time really stops when I see these photographs! 🙂
Oh that makes me happy! Thank you and cheers too~
Such amazing detail you have, these are really wonderful – what stunning creatures they are!! 😀
I am just very happy you enjoy them!
Cheers to a butterfly show … (we occasionally go to one here) … and they offer countless photo ops … and even more for someone like yourself who knows how to use a good camera!
How thoughtful of you to say & how appreciated! Grazi~
What absolutely beautiful butterflies – what an incredible experience! 🙂
I went back today because my husband wanted to see them! I got some gorgeous new varieites. It is just magical! Thanks so much for stopping by~
“Awesome!” Your reactions and your photos almost brought me to unexpected tears.
Awwwww, you I do not want to make cry! But I know what you are saying and I am grateful! Hugz~
Absolutely stunning, Cindy! I went to a butterfly garden in a Seattle zoo once and was mesmerized. I could have spent the entire day there. Lovely, lovely pictures!
YEP!!! I just went back because by hubby wanted to see them. Got some great shots of the Blue Morphos. It is a wonderful experience and I am glad you know this first hand!
Wish butterflies locally are that tame. 🙂
They were in the Amazon and in Iguazu Falls, both jungles with not too many people who don’t hurt them!
So beautiful.
Nature can certainly come up with such a variety of designs and colours, as on these butterflies. Stunning 🙂
Yes! Mother Nature is the ultimate artist! Cheers to you and thank you too~
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I just love butterflies, their colours and movement inspire me. Beautiful photographs.
So happy you enjoyed them & cheers to you!
Reblogged this on Art, animals, and the earth.
You honor me and I am most appreciative! Thank you & cheers to you~
Reblogged this on Jugraphia Slate.
How thoughtful and considerate of you and how very appreciated!
The Pleasure was entirely mine
Beautiful butterflies Cindy and a nice experience having them on one’s hand. Such delicate creatures 🙂
Something truly other-worldly and wonderful about these flying fairies!
I have never seen butterflies quiet like these the colours are out of this world.
Yes, it is why I had to go back to make sure I wasn’t dreaming!!
The return was also like a dream.
😎
Beautiful photos. I don’t know what happened, but I lost you from my following list. I back to following you.
WP glitches are what happened! Someone else mentioned this. Today in my reader I had 6 hours of people’s post and then it jumped to 1 month ago, eliminating more than 29 days of posts from my reader. Impressive!
B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L is the only right word. Thanks for sharing these wonders.
FGM
So kind and so appreciated!! Thank you for your thoughtfulness~
Cindy…I feel literally humbled when I come to your blog!! <3 Your incredible eye for art & beauty and your skill having mastered your craft is mind boggling! Being able to look at the product of these things leaves me: humbled…emotional….joyous…amazed…& grateful to know you & call you friend. 😉
Well, you know there is a reason why I blog, and you are a perfect example of why I do it. I have such gratitude for the incredibly kind, generous and talented friends, I have made through blogging. You enrich my life and bring me joy. I would never have the opportunity to meet you if it were not for blogging, and so I am very grateful. Hugz to you my friend and thank you for your generosity of spirit and for sharing your God given talents with all of us~