I like many other people had never been to the New York Botanical Gardens before Sunday. I enjoyed exploring the garden and seeing how beautiful it was. The day was nice, although it was pretty hot and humid, and the shining sun made it a day that makes you appreciate how gorgeous nature is. I’m looking forward to visiting the Botanical Gardens again whenever I get the chance.

I was in the butterfly and moth group when I was at the Gardens. My group only had 3 people in and we were given butterfly nets so that we could try to catch moths or butterflies when we saw them. Our guide told us that we were the group that saw the most butterflies and moths which was great, although I don’t remember seeing a single moth in sight. I think that in my mind I had imagined seeing a plethora of butterflies, and yes my mind can be a bit over the top sometimes, but I was disappointed that there weren’t that many butterflies or moths to be seen. Even though we saw the most of any of the other groups, I just wish there had been more. I mean the groups that had bees were lucky because the bees were everywhere and I just wish it had been that way with the butterflies.

The butterflies were gorgeous. It was nice to see how the outside wings and the inner wings of a butterfly can be different colors. One of the butterflies had beautiful blue wings with some orange spots on them. I love colors and seeing the different combinations that butterflies can have was great. I think butterflies are beautiful in general and seeing them up close was a bit of a dream come true. (Yes I am still a little kid at heart.) The simple things in life just have a way of making me happy.

My guide definitely knew what he was talking about. I believe he had been fascinated by insects since he was a kid and I could tell that he really loved talking about butterflies. He could tell the names of butterflies by what color they were and he could distinguish whether each butterfly was a male or a female. He knew his stuff and was passionate about it which I really appreciated. I think the coolest part of the day was seeing a butterfly with part of its wings bitten off. Our guide told us that butterflies have also changed to adapt to their environment. In their process of evolution certain types of butterflies have the back of its wings look like another head. In this way if a predator, birds mostly, mistakes the false head as the real ones, the butterfly is able to survive the attack and fly away while the bird is just chewing on the wings. Butterflies are pretty cool.

I suppose a part that I disliked about the Bio Blitz was that we didn’t really get the chance to capture the butterflies ourselves. Maybe we wouldn’t have been that great at it, but it still would have been fun to try. My group also consisted of only three people and I think in general I don’t think there were a lot of people looking at butterflies. I also don’t know what type of data we were supposed to be collecting. I went to the Gardens and had fun looking at butterflies, but when the time comes to do a research project, I don’t really know how I could do it on butterflies.

Overall I would say it was a nice experience.