Friend Lynn and I went to Brookside Gardens in Silver Spring, Maryland today to see their annual butterfly exhibit. Unsurprisingly, several butterflies landed on Lynn and were happy to hang out on her. In addition to being able to walk around in a greenhouse full of butterflies, Brookside Gardens also provides educational ops in the form of a live egg & caterpillar display, a hatchery, a touch and see table, an identification display and an outdoor garden with examples of butterfly-friendly plants. During the season they may have up to 600-700 live specimens in the greenhouse. You can even purchase your own butterfly identification chart when you buy your tickets.
I will definitely return with camera in hand.
Some info for my fellow photographers:
The butterflies are less active on cool, cloudy days than on warm, sunny ones. Normally the butterflies spend much of their time in the air, so a tripod will not be very useful.
Weekdays may be less crowded than weekends. The winged critters like to hang out on the plates that are filled with ugly rotting fruit and on the less-than beautiful greenhouse walls and ceiling. They do hang out on the plants, but they are usually busy feeding and wiggle around quite a bit. Volunteers move the newly hatched critters out of the hatchery and onto the nearby flowers. We were told that this is normally completed at around noon or 1pm, but today they moved them at about 4pm or 5pm due to the cool temperature and moist conditions. The new butterflies tend to remain very still and will be much easier to shoot.
Also, be aware that last tickets are sold at 4pm and you need to leave the greenhouse by 5pm.
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