#club5050 The Very Hungry Caterpillar

I felt very hungry earlier today whilst cooking a full English brunch at home.

A peacock Aglais io butterfly can flick its wings open so fast which scares off predators.

I spent the entire day out yesterday so today I just wanted to be cosy indoors and occasionally look at the garden birds courting each other through the window. Yes, it is this time of the year when love is in the air.

A blue tit Parus caeruleus having peanuts from one of my handmade bird feeders.

But imagine you just woke up today, starving and you are a caterpillar!

A Scotch argus Erebia aethiops butterfly.

This is a popular book with holes in it which helps our kids learn to read in a fun way.

Right now there is a pop-up event here in West London which is entirely based on the book and it will be here, awaiting little explorers, till Easter.

Kids have to chomp their way along the trail getting closer and closer to the massive transformation.

The book's author, Eric Carle was a talented illustrator too who became well-known for his colourful collages made from hand-painted tissue paper. To imitate it, the pop-up designers painted onto a robust fabric called Tyvek, the very same material which Carle also used to create big versions of his painted tissue art. The artist used a broom instead of a paintbrush so that the brush marks would definitely stand out when looking at a large installation.

A cabbage white Pieris rapae butterfly.

Kids use their legs to scramble through the structures. Many think that a caterpillar has lots of legs but it actually has just six true legs. It keeps them into adulthood when it turns into a pretty butterfly.

Children wriggle through these holes like caterpillars. Unsurprisingly the insects don't have even a single bone in their bodies.

Kids and even adults can peep through the strawberries for a proper caterpillar view. Caterpillars have twelve eyes but can't actually see very well.

Make a guess which came first, orange as a fruit or as a colour?

It turns out that orange was the name of the fruit long before it was the word for the colour, which is unisex and a favourite of many graphic designers. Butterflies themselves are particularly attracted to orange, yellow and red flowers.

They prefer long trumpet-shaped or flat flowers which they can easily get their mouthparts into. Butterflies suck up the nectar using their curled, long proboscis like a straw.

Here the little explorers have the unique opportunity to get a feel of being in a cocoon which the big caterpillars build themselves.

Once fully grown a caterpillar forms a chrysalis which has a solid protective case. Safe at last in it, it transforms for about a month into a stunning butterfly.

A comma Polygonia c-album butterfly.

Butterflies are the prime pollinators of herbs and vegetables whilst bees mainly pollinate fruit crops. A butterfly lives for just one to two weeks though.

I hope you learnt something new today and enjoyed looking at my photographs.

Cheers and till next time.