Dubai Butterfly Garden Review

This weekend I wanted to do something easy with less drive and hastle, so we decided to visit Dubai butterfly Garden. We have been to Miracle garden and Houston Cockrell Butterfly center before, so I assumed it to be mix of both. I was also hoping to see some amazing indoor landscaping and very colorful butterflies to do some macro photography there.

 

Facility:

The whole facility is much smaller to what I expected. It consists of a museum( I will not call it a museum though more like artistic display) in the entrance where there multiple species of butterflies are framed beautifully.

From the entrance museum one get to one of the three domes which house the butterflies. I liked the flow of facility. Also I really liked the idea of small domes or gazebo inside the bigger domes to get even closer to the butterflies.

Temperature inside was not managed well as I was sweating heavily. Indoor landscaping was also Okish, I was expecting a lot more flowers and greenery.

 

 

It took us approx 2 hours to go through the area. I think the whole area is good enough for 1 hour to 1 hour and 30 minutes. It took me 2 hours as I was trying to do macro photography.

 

 

Butterfly Species:

Butterflies were in abundance and literally every where but I was sort of disappointed to see very few species of butterflies, The whole facility was full of mainly 3 to 4 species which were every where. Out of 10 butterflies , 8 were from 1 moth like Butterfly kind which was rather scary.

I still enjoyed the over all experience with whatever species were there as no matter what, butterflies are still pretty and fun to photograph.

 

Entry Ticket:

Entry ticket is priced at 50 dirhams per person.

 

Conclusion:

I enjoyed the overall experiemce, good fun for family specially with

kids. But with the entry price of 50 dirhams I will not recomend. With entry ticket between 20 to 30 this place would be ideal hangout for family fun but if entry ticket is not an issue for you then do visit and let me know if you agree to my review or not.

 

 

 

 

Emirates Park Zoo and Resort- Review

I enjoy photographing animals and unless you work for nat geo or live in a jungle you can only find Interesting animals in zoo.  Emirates Zoo Park even though small yet one of the best Zoo I have been to. The only Zoo that offers very close encounters with Animals.

 

There is a whole section where you can feed animals like Deer, Giraffe and Zebra. There are Random Zoo worker stand on the walk ways with Small animals like Snakes and Birds for you to hold and take pictures.

 

Another good thing about the facility was the number of Cafes that are there which is usually not the case generally. Also there is a resort where you can rent a room and enjoy special experience mostly with herbivore animals.

 

Entry Fee is normal which is 30Dhms and with additional 10 to 20 dirhams for the food that you can purchase inside and is optional.

 

We went there on a Rainy day so Sun was not an Issue but with the amount of Shade that's available I believe on regular days it should not be an issue as well.

 

As far as Animals are concern so they have wide range of animals from Farm Donkeys to Exotic White Tigers. To name few we saw :

• Regular Farm animals like Goat, Sheep, Donkey, Cow, Pigs
• Herbivores like Deer, Gazelle, Antler
• Predators like Crocs, Lion, Jaguar, Cheetah, White and Regular Tigers
• Quite some Range of Monkeys and Baboons
• Reptile house had impressive collection of Snake including Anaconda
• Aquarium was a bit of disappointment as it housed regular home aquarium fish only except one Sting Ray.
• Seal and I was informed there are regular Seal shows as well unfortunately It was also closed most probably b'coz of rain.
• Numerous interesting birds like Ground Crane, Flamingos, Crowned Pigeon
• Elephant section was closed due to some renovation so we couldn't see one.

Birds and Monkeys were in regular cages and Reptiles/Predators were in closed facilities with view only possible through Glass windows. Rest of the animals were pretty much in open facility and very accessible. People Living in the Resort had much better view and access to the animals though I yet to have experience that.Great fun for kids and photographers I must say.
Few of the snaps I took there

Houston Zoo

It was really fun shooting all these animals at Houston Zoo. i went there with my nephew and niece. It was really hot and zoo was huge plus when i am taking pics i stop a lot . I may spend 30 min in one spot, so that on top of the heat made kids really tired. so i couldn't finish the whole zoo but still the reptilian center it self was worth an experience. I wish one day i can open a small Animal shelter :)

Plants and animals, 100th postSpecial.

My very First shot that i loved,taken with in 1st week of D60 ownership.