Butterfly Farms

We've both always loved butterflies and have tried to make our front yard into a garden with food sources for butterflies, bees and hummingbirds, so we went up to see the butterflies at Butterfly Farms in Vista recently.

Butterfly Farms

Most of the butterflies they have, both inside and outside the enclosure, are native to Southern California.

Monarch

Of course there were plenty of Monarchs enjoying the abundant Asclepia.

Gulf Fritillaries on Lantana

I was surprised to see how popular the Lantana was with the butterflies; we ripped out all the overgrown Lantana in our yard long ago, but the Gulf Fritillary (Agraulis vanillae) butterflies were all over the Lantana shrubs in this enclosure.

Indra Swallowtail

An Indra Swallowtail (Papilio indra) also found the Lantana attractive.  And a couple of Indra Swallowtails even found each other attractive.

It was an interesting place.