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A meeting with friends
Monika G
[email protected]
Running short of time in my holidays, I combined two plans together and a trip to
Kallar was made to meet my human friends amidst the colourful butterfly friends.
Kallar Horticulture Farm,
Kallar is a beautiful place with a small river running in the middle by the same name.
Kallar provides scenic views, spectacular array of animals like deer, elephants,
monkeys, squirrels, snakes, lizards, birds and my favourite part - a wide range of
insects. We visited Kallar Fruit Garden, which is a park in Kallar Reserve Forest. The
Garden is an orchard of many delicious fruits like litchi, bilimbi, mango, starfrusit,
jackfruit, mangustan, etc., which are often looted by monkeys. There is a stretch of
road, a lane, leading to the Kallar Fruit Garden from the Ooty Main Roadways; that
area also gives many colourful butterflies, beautiful birds and surprising monkeys to a Place: State Horticulture farm, Kallar
District: Coimbatore
nature observer.
How to reach: From Mettupalayam,
For our Butterfly walk, we started from the lane, then into the Fruit Garden and back Coimbatore
again, till the starting point, that is the meeting of lane to the main road. We had Habitat: Moist Deciduous Forest
started late, as it was a partly cloudy day, but, the sun was playing disco now and then
with sudden sunlight. Overall, the weather was highly humid. Butterfly activity had started visibly by the roadsides by the time
we reached. With warm greetings, we all walked in full excitement to catch glimpses of some colourful beauties. The first
invitation was from a Three-spot Grass Yellow followed by Blue Mormon and Common Banded Peacock. The Three-spot Grass
Yellow rested in shade beneath a leaf to cool its body. Then, at a clearing just after a few minutes, we found a lot of Emigrants,
restlessly flying from plant to plant, and sucking alkaloids. They were mostly Mottled Emigrants & also 2 different races of
Lemon Emigrants could be observed. Walking on the lane, we saw Lime butterflies, Common Castor, Psyche, Common
Mormons and Crimson Roses too. A little later we met another butterfl y observer, Mr. Rengaraj. Together, we spotted a Great
Orange-tip rest in a thicket.
PATTAMPOOCHI
A TNBS MAGAZINE
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