I have been always been fascinated with butterflies. When I was a little boy growing up in the San Francisco Bay Area, I would often venture out during the spring and summer months to a nearby orchard or field armed with my trusty butterfly net (and my special collecting jars) trying to chase down the prized monarch butterfly or some fast moving swallowtails. At a nearby cabbage field about 1 block from my house, there would always be a plentiful supply of cabbage whites and sulfurs, but I was always interested in the bigger and more glamorous game. At one time, I had quite a collection of mounted butterflies as well as other insects in my cigar boxes.

Many years later as an adult, I traveled numerous times to the tropics - Thailand, Costa Rica, South America and the Caribbean - where I encountered so many exotic four winged beauties. Not too long ago, I traded in my butterfly net for a digital camera. Just as I did as a little boy some 50 years ago, I tried to chase down and “capture” my constantly moving prey albeit with a camera. In the last couple of years, I have built up a quite a collection of pictures.

Back on the home front, in order to attract a variety of butterflies to my backyard, I developed a butterfly garden in my backyard by planting a variety of nectar and species-specific host plants for my four winged friends.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 5th, 2008 at 8:29 am and is filed under Butterflies, Nature, travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.