Butterfly Wonderland

I found something new in the Phoenix area called Butterfly Wonderland.  It's located on the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community just outside Scottsdale and it has many components to it.  You start with a 3-D movie about Monarch Butterfly migrations, you move to the Butterfly Emergence Gallery where you can observe butterflies emerging from the chrysalises.  The photo above was taken there.
Next you enter the atrium where the butterflies live and fly all around you.  It's like a semi-tropical rainforest with tropical plants and trees.

That is where I took this photo of a Scarlet Swallowtail.  I actually took 168 photos of which 108 are good enough to keep.  There were butterflies here that I had never seen before.  It was a photographer's paradise and I can assure you, there were many, many photographers inside snapping away.  When you leave the atrium, you head into an area with honey bee and ant colony demonstrations and into an aquarium featuring fish from the rivers of the Amazon.

I didn't have quite the same luck photographing the fish.  Those rascals simple won't hold still for a portrait.  But, here's one that's not too bad.

It's a fun place.  Check it out if you live in the area.