May 8, 2019

Tropical Butterfly House Papiliorama in Kerzers

May 8, 2019 -- We have just been having the worst weather in the last couple of weeks and it doesn't look like it will be getting any better soon. Cold and lots of rain. And where is our Spring?

On this Wednesday, our day off, we decided to go look for Spring in the tropical house called Papiliorama which is in Kerzers near Bern. It was a great outing for this awful rainy day, although it was almost too warm and humid in the little jungle they have there!

I love the Papiliorama, this is my second time there. It is a large greenhouse with huge tropical trees and ponds and thousands of butterflies of all sizes and colours that flit around like pieces of paper. Some of the butterflies have about a 20-cm wingspan! 

In another part of the building is a replica of a tropical forest in Belize with exotic birds and fish, and there is also a nocturnal house where bats fly free while you walk in semi-dark and observe the two-toed sloths and raccoons. 

But the Butterfly House is my favourite. The chrysalises are imported from Malaysia and Belize and hung in a hatching cabinet for visitors to view and watch the butterflies hatch. A couple of times a day they are released, and that is when you can observe them best as they rest for a few hours on a tree trunk before trying out their new wings. 


The tropical garden in the butterfly house at the Papiliorama

Exotic butterflies drying their wings before flying off into the "jungle"

Tropical Asien Butterfly called the "Great Mormon"

The Atlas Moth is amongst one of the largest moths in the world. Females can reach a wingspan of 25 cm. 

Tropical Asian butterfly called "Emerald Swallowtail"

South American Butterfly: "Purple Mort" (Bambusfalter)

Asian Tropical Butterfly:  "White Tree Nymph"

My personal favourite: "Blue Morpho", a tropical American butterfly. There were many of these flitting all over the place.

These Blue Morphos were hard to photograph because when they finally landed, they would close their wings and show onl the underside, which is brown with beautiful large spots. 
This is the Blue Morphos when it has its wings closed

A variety of other butterflies that I was able to photograph

Hanging out near the roof of the "Greenhouse"

This is a type of pigeon that obviously does not eat butterflies, because it was also flying in the butterfly house

In the Belize Jungle House, there were some exotic birds such as this Roseate Spoonbill

This one we barely saw, it was in a tree hollow above eye level. Urs is taller so he saw its head. With the camera up high I was able to photograph this Great Currasow, the largest bird species in the Shipstern Nature Reserve in Belize

I don't know what this one was called
There were also Toucans, but I could not capture their beautiful colours on camera.

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