That is a beautiful butterfly. Love the differences between 'open' and 'closed'. I'm sure there is some sort of 'rather not get eaten easily because of my multiple eyes' defense strategy going on there.
I went to a similar place in Tucson, it IS fascinating. Like you mentioned, one has to be careful where to tread. So relaxing, having them fly around. Didn't get to see them hatch though. As you said, timing timing timing.
Oh definitely! I'm think twice if I was a bird or something and saw a slew of things seeming to look back at me. lol.
I got rather lucky on the hatching...though the pic turned out a little blurry. (Hence why I didn't include it in the post.)