My Best Butterfly Moment 2016
AUG: August was lil bit dull but we local members were happy observing migration of 100s of CROWS, and BLUE TIGERS
SEPT: Team Rajapalayam butterfly club was on a trip to Siruvani for a butterfly walk which wasn ' t that promising and fed up. Worried we would be returning with nothing, the next day sudden plan to Kallar with team WYNTER BLYTH ASSOCIATION- Manoj na, Jee Jeevith na, vinod na and I was pleased to meet butterfly expert Vkchandrasekharan Lic sir. Such a great and humble person. The trip which was worthless turned out to be the best from this KALLAR AND NILGIRIS trip. We got ORCHID TIT, NILGIRI TIT, YELLOW BREASTED FLAT AND BABY FIVE RING. All rarities in one GO. One of the best occasions. Also from this trip completed photo documenting other family " HEDGE BLUES ". Got WHITE DISC HEDGE BLUE as a lifer. NEVER TO FORGET wildlife week was celebrated and I was happy to be teaching various school kids about butterflies and getting
NOV: from Nilgiris trip, till Nov mid not much good butterflying sessions and days went dull. My cousin Rajith Kumar showed me a pic he took in his spinning mill saying this butterfly came today and 2-3 were flying around. Seeing his picture after clarifying doubts with experts it was PLAINS BLUE ROYAL. I visited his mill after 3 days and I was shocked to see nearly 30 + individuals were just flying restlessly in the bushes of neem tree. All the neem there had Loranthus and few among the individuals were freshly eclosed. One more unforgettable moment to CHERISH. Also never to forget Butterflies of India by Isaac Kehimkar sir was finally in my hands which featured my pictures of rare and endemic EVERSHEDS ACE.
DEC: last month of the year, thought I can visit eco park Courtallam which turned out to be a dull day. I was there butterflying from 9.40am to 12.30pm and no interesting activity was going on. When I decided to just leave the park and go home, 2 individuals of MANY-TAILED OAKBLUES came from nowhere and sat right in front of me. Dreams do come true. There ' s always something called as LUCK. Managed to make a decent picture. Back home in Rajapalayam I have got 100s of COMMON JEZE- BEL caterpillars, pupas etc. and I wanted to do a setup photography. I took 3 cats which was about to pupate and put them in a stick. In 1.5 days they pupated in a line and it was so exciting for me to wait for it to eclose so that it would be too colourful and a dream image anyone will look up to. Likewise it got eclosed 5-6 days later and I had made my dream image. Recently I got a chance to attend Arippa Butterfly meet where I got to meet one of INDIAS butterfly legend Peter Smetacek sir. Learnt a hell lot of information ' s from him and he was so kind and spoke / taught like a friend. Never to forget moment having met him nearby my locale. We got to sight two Rare Oakblue sps, ROSY OAKBLUE and TAMIL OAKBLUE in the same patch in 30seconds gap. How lucky I was I couldn ' t imagine. Happy to have got 4 OAKBLUE sps in a year.
This year was yet another great year though it was too dry compared to last year. But each moment is to be cherished and loved. Happy that I started trying out doing lifecycles though most were failures, and just learning scientific names of them. looking forward for another FABULOUS YEAR.
Prakash Gurunathan
Many-tailed Oakblue- Siruvani- 6th Nov 2016
Gopal Krishnan
Stalking and capturing this endemic beauty during butterfly walk along with our TNBS friends in Kallar is my cherished moment of this year.
Nilgiri Tit-Hypolycaena nilgirica. Aug 16. Kallar. TN.