Bribie Island Butterfly House Visit

The world’s best loved insects – butterflies. As soon as I walked into the Bribie Island Butterfly House, a sense of calm enveloped me. Founder Ray Archer says “Butterflies are beautiful and very peaceful insects” and I can attest to that.

This tranquil not-for-profit organisation was founded by Ray and Delphine Archer who sold their business Olive Products Australia and moved to beautiful Bribie Island, off the south-east coast of Queensland, so Ray could devote time to his passion for breeding and raising butterflies.

I’d like to take you on a stroll through the butterflies domain. But first we will learn a few facts from the Nursery before entering their airy, sun-filled, flower-perfumed enclosure.

A LESSON OR TWO ON BUTTERFLIES . . .

A female butterfly may lay between 100 to 200 eggs, and within a week or so a caterpillar will hatch.
A caterpillar breathes through tiny holes in its sides and will eat its own weight in leaf material every day until the final skin is discarded and the chrysalis hardens.
Inside the chrysalis, metamorphosis continues as the butterfly is formed and this can take weeks, months or sometimes years.
When the final stages of the caterpillar are complete, the newly formed adult butterfly will emerge, needing a few hours to dry its wings before taking flight.
Butterflies don’t have a mouth, they use their proboscis like a straw to drink nectar from flowers.
Butterflies have two large compound eyes which offer a wide visual field and extreme colour vision.
The two antennae on a butterfly’s head help with navigation and detecting plant aromas and a prospective mate.

AND THE ONE YOU WILL BE TESTED ON . . .

Butterflies are insects in the macrolepidopteran clade Rhopalocera from the order Lepidoptera.

Ready to go inside? You have to go slow because butterflies don’t dive-bomb you like mosquitoes. Silent wings flutter by, difficult to photograph, I marvel at their fragility.

Photos left to right—Plant-filled entry; a vine chock-full of happy butterflies; misty air rises from a vaporizer; a Common Crow, why that name?; a Swamp Tiger against the blue sky; newly hatched Monarch; oops, there’s two Orchard Swallowtails mating, best move on . . .

Common Crow

Swamp Tiger

Monarch

Orchard Swallowtails

NEXT I NOTICED QUIRKY THINGS TUCKED AROUND THE BUTTERFLY HOUSE . . .

Hanging pot planters and gumboots stuffed with plants.
A rather clandestine bubbler and a secret butterfly door.
Inspirational quote and landing pad stocked with nutritious butterfly food.

This lady (below) had to make sure she was butterfly-free before leaving. The butterflies landed on hair and hats. Interestingly, they stayed well clear of the heavy black plastic doors, perhaps because their focus is on light, bright colours.

Before departing I visited the plant section where butterfly-friendly plants (see chart) were available for purchase. There is no cafe and no merchandising, and nobody telling visitors The Rules. The only suggestion is to leave your worries in a bin at the door. Quite a refreshing visit in more ways than one!

The Bribie Island Butterfly House exists to provide a sense of purpose and lasting friendships among their volunteers, to offer visitors an enjoyable and educational visit in a peaceful environment and to help the disadvantaged via donations to charities.

Grow a patch of dandelions! Check out Lyn’s wonderful UK Butterflies And Garden blog. Pledge to stop using manufactured pesticides! Around my area, the green tree frog and butterfly populations have severely decreased due to the rise in toxic garden herbicides and pesticides. Think natural, not noxious!

And, of course, my avatar is a hand-drawn butterfly.

♥ Gretchen Bernet-Ward

Three Things #6

Blabbing about three topics based on READING LOOKING THINKING. This time a poetry collection, real live butterflies and overrating books. One post in three parts, a neat idea started by blogger Paula Bardell-Hedley of Book Jotter. Jump in! 😃 GBW.

BRUCE DAWE – POET

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Dawe

READING: The dust-jacket image of a wooden paling fence on Bruce Dawe’s outstanding 1969 poetry collection ‘Beyond the Subdivisions’ will be familiar to anyone who lived in Australia in the middle decades of the 20th century. Timber mills must have worked overtime because everyone had a six-foot fence enclosing three sides of their quarter acre suburban block of land. A subdivision was formed by building identical weatherboard or brick veneer homes. Now called a housing estate or residential development but probably just as uniform.

Cravensville by Bruce Dawe

‘Run-of-the-mill’, you well might call this town
—A place where many go, but few remain,
Where you’d be mad to want to settle down,
Off the main road, too far from bus or train,
Neither backblocks enough to suit the likes
Of most of us, nor moderately supplied
With urban comforts, good for mystery hikes,
But not the place to take the happy bride.

Population : 750, the guide-books say . . .
After a week or two the hills close in,
And what you came to find here moves away
(If it was ever here . . .)
‘So what’s your sin?’
The barman says, with a wink, and the blowfly drone
Of justification starts, for him alone.

This slim grey poetry book with orange lining was purchased for one dollar at UQ Alumni Book Fair 2019. The original 1969 price sticker on the front reads $1.95 which is confirmed on the inside flyleaf. In fifty years it had never been opened.

Back to the paling fence—as a child, I remember thinking the fence was insurmountable. Tall and ominous, it forbade me from seeing what was on the other side. As I grew older, I tried to climb the cross struts (usually only on one side of the fence) and couldn’t get a toe-hold. Splinters searing through my fingers, I fell back to ground. However, this didn’t stop me. Growing taller and bolder, one day I wrenched myself up and peeked over the top of the fence to see what our elderly nextdoor neighbour’s backyard looked like. Pretty ordinary as I recall. By this time, her children had moved away, the pets had passed away and I was way more interested in pop singers.

What has this got to do with Bruce Dawe, Australian poet extraordinaire? Nothing really, except I love his gritty poetry about what goes on beyond those wooden fences. Such insight, such lyrical, satirical prose. His words may appear nostalgic, yet not, because human nature never really changes. GBW.

BRIBIE ISLAND BUTTERFLY HOUSE

https://www.bribieislandbutterflyhouse.org/

LOOKING: The Bribie Island Butterfly House, north of Brisbane, is a community organisation run by volunteers. It is an incredibly tranquil experience to walk into a huge enclosure filled with beautiful flowers and thousands of butterflies. There is not a sound. Around a corner are small bubblers yet nothing detracts from the calm, delicate atmosphere. I was lucky to visit on a sunny day because apparently this makes the butterflies more active—but as my photographs below will demonstrate, it was hard to get a still image.

Six blurry shots of a Lesser Wanderer butterfly, fluttering its wings so fast and furious I gave up trying to focus. It was enjoying the nectar from the daisy-like flower and nothing was going to distract it. I thought perhaps it would stop for a quick rest but it didn’t. That flower must have been delicious!

As I was reading the information brochure, a Swamp Tiger butterfly landed on it. They like light, bright colours and often landed on the visitors sunhats. The spotted Monarch butterfly on the right was newly hatched and getting its bearings.

The next photo I took was of two butterflies mating . . . sorry, folks, but this post is only a trailer. I have heaps more to tell you so please visit my full report with photos on Bribie Island Butterfly House Visit. GBW.

OVERRATING BOOKS

Dangers Of Hyping Books
https://madamewriterblog.com/2019/05/27/dangers-of-hyping-books/

Discussion: To Read Or Not To Read Reviews
https://thoughtsstainedwithink.com/2019/01/28/discussion-to-read-or-not-to-read-reviews/

The Most Nonsensical Terms Used In Book Blurbs
https://litreactor.com/columns/the-most-nonsensical-terms-used-in-book-blurbs

THINKING: First, I would like to thank Madame Writer and Thoughts Stained With Ink and Peter Derk of LitReactor for voicing several bookish Thoughts on subjects which I have mused over but never put into Words. They raised some valid questions, none I can satisfactorily answer but I would like to respond—

We all know book publicity takes many forms. It’s a big leap from when William Shakespeare saw his posters printed off a hand-blocked press. Currently we have literary journals, author talks, Facebook, dedicated websites, bloggers, online bookshops, the list goes on, all reviewing with a positive spin. More on that further down.

I follow trusted book reviewers (you know who you are!) and receive publishers e-newsletters. I don’t read backcover book blurb unless my mind is filled with a healthy dose of scepticism. I don’t read a book review unless it’s from my independent sources or I am already halfway through the story. Likewise I won’t read book hype, particularly on social media, until I’ve formed my own opinion. When I finish a book, I read blurb, reviews and hype just to see if I agree with everyone. Not always, but that’s the beauty of personal opinion.

Then there’s snappily worded book bolstering, raking through the coals of already formed opinions, to generate a spark in book sales and sway the undecided reader. I don’t review most of the books I read but after reading I make a mental note of the merits of each one. And the Choose-Your-Own process works for me. I’ve read some great books which I originally knew nothing about. Stubborn, yes, belief in book hype, no.

Which brings me to the reviewers, particularly those who receive an ARC in return for an honest review. Are their reviews strictly honest? Do they leave out the bits they don’t like? Fudge the wording? I’ve yet to read a scathing review for a publisher’s complimentary copy. Someone out there must have written an unhappy book review, one where it genuinely states ‘This book is rubbish’ and not because they don’t like the genre.

Fear holds us back; fear of no longer receiving free copies; fear of being pilloried by other readers; fear of ridicule from fans; fear of not sounding smart enough; fear of being the kid in the classroom who stands out for all the wrong reasons. We shouldn’t have any fear about expressing ourselves honestly but we do. Be nice, be fair but does that mean be honest? Rather than admit they don’t like a book, reviewers have been known NOT to write a review. Almost misinformation for both reader and author.

I’m under no allusion that my Three Things #6 will make waves in the blogging community yet I still put myself out there, turning my Thoughts into Words, and trying not to be fearful of the result. GBW.

♥ Gretchen Bernet-Ward