Anne Elliott's photos with the keyword: Heliconius

Another tropical butterfly photographed in the butterfly room at the Calgary Zoo. As usual, I don't guarantee that any of my IDs are 100% accurate, but I am doing my best to be as accurate as possible. Or it might be Heliconius cydno. Would like to have been standing in that hot, humid room this morning, lol! Instead, we were walking in Fish Creek Park for something like six hours, doing the annual May Species Bird Count in rain and SNOW and in temperatures of 0.8-2C! Out came the winter boots, the sweater, the fleece jacket, the thick winter jacket, toque, two pairs of gloves and long-johns - and it's June in three days time, lol. I was almost soaked to the skin! An enjoyable walk, though, as usual. We saw a total of 47 bird species, compared to 58 species May 2009.

A beautiful Heliconius cydno at rest in the ENMAX Conservatory at the Calgary Zoo. This butterfly ranges from Mexico to northern South America. Sorry, gotta post and run, which seems to be the story of my life the last few weeks! Have a volunteer shift this afternoon. Yesterday morning, went on a bird walk in Weaselhead for over three hours (happy to see a distant Kingfisher), and then had a botany outing all evening (happy to see Yellow Lady's-slipper orchids and friend, David, did a brilliant job of finding a Morel mushroom in three different locations - my photos are crummy because of such poor light and the settings were so unphotogenic). Judging by the storm clouds above us, we were expecting to be rained on heavily, but amazingly the rain only started when I was part way driving home.