Welcoming back our butterflies

Spring has sprung at a Nambour nursery and Teena Harcla is preparing for insects to return in the hundreds.

SPRING: Teena Harcla from Butterfly Hill with a newly hatched butterfly. Picture: Warren Lynam

CHILDREN learn the life cycle of a butterfly from a young age.

We're brought up reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar and marvel at the beautiful colours on their wings when they emerge from a long slumber in the chrysalis.

For Teena Harcla, butterflies make up her day-to-day life.

She runs Butterfly Hill in Nambour, a one-stop shop for butterflies, their host plants and is a wealth of knowledge on the species.

When springtime comes, the nursery is filled with hundreds of bright-coloured insects.

With more than 20,000 species of butterflies around the world, Ms Harcla is currently nursing a handful of butterflies as they awake from their winter metamorphosis.

"It's amazing how it can be one insect and then all of a sudden it's a different insect," she said.

Each customer at the nursery gets a guided tour from the butterfly enthusiast, where they witness each stage of the life cycle in person and get up close with the species and their host plant.

Each species of butterfly has a different host plant that it inhabits, so customers purchase their plants based on what kind of butterfly they would love to see in their garden.

With guests coming from across the world, in the business's almost five years they've become a point of difference in the town.

"People love to see caterpillars just as much as the butterflies, they're all so different," Ms Harcla said.

"I love them all, I couldn't make up my mind about a favourite."

For opening hours and contact numbers, visit Butterfly Hill on Facebook.

Originally published as Welcoming back our butterflies