A gift on Valentine's Day.

avatar

Mother nature gave us a gift for all of the ladies on Hive.
044.jpg

A rare live White-barred Charaxes butterfly (Charaxes brutus natalensis).

Never could I have imagined such a lovely gift, and in addition, our beautiful, Curly Locks, (Echeveria shaviana) plant, decided to bloom on this day. So, I will show you both in here, and we hope that you will accept it as a Valentine gift from @papilloncharity

Apparently, there are a few sub-species of the charaxes, and I have placed our South African one in bold.

Subspecies
The following subspecies are recognised:
C. b. brutus (Senegal, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Togo, western Nigeria)
C. b. alcyone Stoneham, 1943 (Kenya: east of Rift Valley, northern and eastern Tanzania)
C. b. angustus Rothschild, 1900 (Eastern Nigeria, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Gabon, Congo, Northern Angola, Zaire, West Uganda)
C. b. natalensis Staudinger, 1885 (South Africa, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Mozambique, Malawi, Tanzania)
C. b. roberti Turlin, 1987 (Pemba Island)

Source

It came flying past and I watched it land on a branch.
032.JPG

Ever so gently I started to encourage it to climb onto my hand. Not easy, as I took the photos with my camera in my other hand.
035.JPG

Come baby, come I softly whispered.
034.JPG

Voila! An excited feeling to actually have a charaxes butterfly on my hand.
041.JPG

Go baby go, and as it flew away, a sad thought came to me that some people would use such an opportunity to catch the butterfly, and to put it in a clear plastic bag, in order to add it to their butterfly collection.
055.JPG

Right and now let's have a look at this gift below.

It is a "Curly Locks" plant, and it is in full bloom.
049.JPG

Pink, orange, red, and all rising from a green succulent base plant.
052.JPG

And so, this is a Valentine's gift for everyone and know that Mother Nature loves you. Her wonderful gifts are like no others, and they are free to enjoy. Never before could I get a Charaxes on my hand, and so it was a very special occasion. This species used to be consigned to the sub-tropical East Coast and Northern Escarpment, but now they have spread rapidly to cities as far afield as Cape Town and Gauteng. It is only my second time now to get a Charaxes on camera, and it just shows how special this Valentine's Day is.
Such is life.

I hope you enjoyed the pictures and story.

Photos by Zac Smith. All-Rights-Reserved.

Camera: Canon PowershotSX70HS Bridge camera.

Thank you kindly for supporting this post.

photographylovers photography butterflies nature valentines proofofbrain creativecoin neoxian vyb silverbloggers
0
0
0.000
35 comments
avatar

That's a beautiful story wrapping that marvelous creature on radiant blooms on this Valentine's Day. Thanks for the wonderful gift @papilloncharity. Mother nature is the best!😇

0
0
0.000
Reply
avatar

Thank you, and I am glad that you appreciate the gift milady.

!PIZZA and !LUV

0
0
0.000
Reply
avatar

@nicolebanilad, @papilloncharity(2/10) sent you LUV. | tools | discord | community | HiveWiki | <>< daily

Made with LUV by crrdlx

0
0
0.000
Reply
avatar

Thank you @papilloncharity @luvshares for the first !LUV. This is new to me and truly make me smile. Indeed it is contagious. Because I was already scanning and reading its "ABOUT" and I am slowly learning. Would want to spread this too😇, the fruit of @crrdlx work😇😇

0
0
0.000
Reply
avatar

'Mother nature gave us a gift for all of the ladies on Hive.' l couldn't agree more with you on that 😊.

Without it, l wouldn't be here eh.

Thank you for sharing - have a wonderful Valentines day ;)

0
0
0.000
Reply
avatar

How beautiful and how rare! It is a perfect Valentine's Day gift. The Curly Locks is also a beauty. I am unfamiliar with it so will have to do some reading up. Happy V Day to you and your missus.

0
0
0.000
Reply
avatar

This post has been manually curated by @bhattg from Indiaunited community. Join us on our Discord Server.

Do you know that you can earn a passive income by delegating to @indiaunited. We share more than 100 % of the curation rewards with the delegators in the form of IUC tokens. HP delegators and IUC token holders also get upto 20% additional vote weight.

Here are some handy links for delegations: 100HP, 250HP, 500HP, 1000HP.

image.png

100% of the rewards from this comment goes to the curator for their manual curation efforts. Please encourage the curator @bhattg by upvoting this comment and support the community by voting the posts made by @indiaunited.

0
0
0.000
Reply
avatar

My son loves butterflies, we go out to the garden to "hunt" some, and when we find them he loves watching them until they leave. Gift gratefully accepted, friend

0
0
0.000
Reply
avatar
(Edited)

PIZZA!
Hive.Pizza upvoted this post.

$PIZZA slices delivered:
papilloncharity tipped elentogether
@papilloncharity(4/15) tipped @tamaralovelace
papilloncharity tipped nicolebanilad

You can now send $PIZZA tips in Discord via tip.cc!

0
0
0.000
Reply
avatar

Hey! Happy Valentine's Day @papilloncharity ❤️. These are some beautiful pics and a great reminder to smell the roses (especially on a day like today 🌹)

I was looking for you on Discord but couldn't find you there. You were supporting INLEO's previous proposal and I was wondering if you've gotten a chance to take a look at INLEO's new proposal. We're onboarding ecosystems and driving economic value to Hive!

Would mean a lot if you took a look! If not, I totally get it. Enjoy your V-Day!

0
0
0.000
Reply
avatar

Oh! The butterfly! that's such a rare and amazing moment. A delicate creature trust you 😍 You're right, Mother nature offers a breathtaking wonders and it's free to all, and we must take care in return❤️

0
0
0.000
Reply
avatar

Thank you, and it was really an exciting moment, especially as it's a rare specimen. !LOL
If only all would realise that we should all take care of nature.

0
0
0.000
Reply
avatar

You're welcome 😊 I hope they will, the world would be a paradise of life and harmony 😍

0
0
0.000
Reply