My nineteen month old son is slightly obsessed with butterflies at the moment, so over the weekend, we visited the Butterfly Pavilion at the London Zoo.
At first glance, while the butterflies are certainly impressive, for the rushed visitor it may seem a little hit or miss. From the outside it looks like a long blowup tube, almost like a kids air trampoline area. Because of my son’s fascination, we hung around for a while longer than the normal visitor, and it was because of our extended stay that I began to notice the true delight in butterfly spotting.
Butterflies are drawn to the insides of the tree leaves where they go largely unnoticed, and the more I looked, the more incredible colours, sizes and shapes I saw.
One may wonder how a butterfly knows where to hide, or even how to fly? After all, some butterflies only live one day, and in this time they’ve got a number of big tasks at hand. The main priority of the females is to lay their eggs, ensuring new caterpillars will be born, but before they can do that, they have to find their way out of their cocoon, figure out how to fly, find something to eat, learn how to defend themselves and find a safe place to leave their offspring. With all that to accomplish in their one day of life, who has time for a bucket list?