Hello Mr Butterfly!

On a whim Sunday morning my 17 year old and I decided on a whim to take a Summer outing to our local Te Puna Quarry Park. We left home first thing in the morning because by about 10am here it's sweltering hot.

One thing we noticed is that all of the Swan Plants were in bloom and there were ALOT of butterflies and and caterpillars. Perfect season I guess - mid to late Summer.

We walked up alot of the hills and by the end of the day my legs were killing me, reminder to self: do stretches before trying that again. We were only there for about an hour and a half as it had warmed up considerably - think we're looking forward to some cool temperatures once Autumn gets here in March - bring it on!

Linking up with Our World Tuesday :-)

Swan plants on Kawau Island

A couple of years ago I visited Auckland's Kawau Island for the day and while exploring the island I came across a large clump of Swan Plants. Now these things are mighty handy as they attract butterflies who lay their eggs on the leaves and when the eggs hatch they turn into caterpillars and eventually out comes Monarchs. Apparently if all the leaves get eaten I've heard of people hanging pieces of pumpkin from the branches for them to munch on. Do you have these where you live?

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