Butterflies, Caterpillars, and the Bokeh Buddha

We have a mulch bed with a bush in it right outside our front door, and in recent years, milkweed has taken up residence there. Many folks would rip out the milkweed, but not us! We know it’s a haven for pollinators and for Monarch butterfly caterpillars. (See two years ago!) We didn’t see any caterpillars last year, but lo! we had one this year.

He was there for a few days, and then we lost track of him. We assume he found a nice place to make a chrysalis, and has by now completed his metamorphosis into a Monarch butterfly. We hope.

(I very well may be misgendering this caterpillar, right? Hmmmm.)

In addition to that caterpillar, the Buffalo and Erie County Botanical Gardens has this summer dedicated one of its rooms to butterflies. We visited this exhibit twice, and here are a few of the denizens there:

I really like that last shot. It’s not the sharpest image I’ve ever taken, but I like that it captures the gossamer threads of the spiderweb beyond the butterfly.

Finally, one of my favorite subjects in the region is this Buddha statue in the Botanical Gardens’s tropical display room. I take pictures of this Buddha every time I’m there (well, both Buddhas, there are two, but this one is the larger). Granted, it’s getting harder to get creative with shooting the same thing every time we visit, but…still, I do it. Here the Buddha isn’t even the focus of the image. I like the way this one turned out.