Changi airport butterfly garden

Today was VISA run day, a day trip to Singapore to get my passport stamped and a new 30 day VISA on my return. The trip went well with no problems. A bit easier on my system than the 8 day road trip that I did twp months ago.

The plan was to do the butterfly garden in Changi airport, terminal 3. It all hinged on whether I could check out and immediately check back in. That went well, so I had three hours to capture as many of the fifty species of butterfly that the garden boasts on their website. I cannot think of a better way to pass the monotonous airport waiting time - other airports should take note.

I really thought it was going to be a busy 3 hours, but I had everything I was going to get in the first 20 minutes, My impression was a little disappointed. There were plenty of butterflies, at one point I had three sitting on top of my bald head, feeding on the sweat that was exuding profusely in the tropical heat and humidity, much to the amusement of the children and their parents.

The web site boasted of 1,000 butterflies, quite possibly true, but as for the near 50 species, I don't think so. The vast majority of the butterflies were of about 5 or 6 species, after that, new species were rare.

BUT, now that I have gone through the images and separated into species folders, I realize that I had done better than I first thought, with 17 different species. So, the publicized 50 species now seems entirely possible, considering that I only had half the garden available, as the other half was a construction site.

What annoyed me the most, was the gardener in charge of the sites upkeep. I was not asking him to tell me the scientific name of a butterfly or plant, I simply asked him how to get to the upper level. He just ignored me. When I got in his face and asked again, he simply shrugged. A language problem - I don't think so, English is the first language in Singapore.

So the garden was better than I thought, but there are improvements to be made:

The biggest omission was information. It is always nice to know what you are looking at, so that the visitor can at least go away with the knowledge that his/her favorite was a 'blue moon'. A simple wall chart or a catalogue with a brief write-up on each or little plaques like you see in most zoos. Even a case of pinned specimens with names would have worked.

The garden needs a clock. Everyone is on a time restraint. I want to look up and see a big clock.

A big mirror would have been a nice touch. I would have loved to get a picture of the butterflies on top of my head.

All in all, well done Changi airport. Other than a few little niggles, a very successful and popular garden.

The blip - I took 140 images and will be keeping a large number of those and will put up a Flickr slideshow in a few days. This image was my favorite even though they were not the best specimens, fighting over a bloom.

Dave