North East Butterfly Meet– Season IV
The Meet
North-East Butterfly Meet 2017 (Season IV) was organised by
Butterflies and Moths of Sikkim-Nature Conservation Society
(BAMOS-NCS) and Butterflies of North Eastern India Group.
The meet was held at picturesque Dzongu Valley, North Sikkim
District in the state of Sikkim between 3rd and 5th September
2017. This is the fourth meet and the last 3 meets were held
elsewhere in North East. There were 32 participants from all
over India and about 10 organisers were part of the meet
group. Local children were also invited to the meet and field.
The announcement to the meet came a few months before the meet date which allowed ample time to plan and execute
especially participants flying up from down south to Sikkim as Air travel cost can be prohibitive if tickets are booked closer to
the date. The meet is in sequence to the ones held for the last 3 years and this is a 4th year in success. The number of butter-
flies in North-Eastern part of India (could be numbering about 1000 species) is easily the reason why people wants to go
there. It was no secret that this is the reason, why a few of us from Tamil Nadu, planned to be there. There were about 5
participants from the state of Tamil Nadu and 3 more from the neighbouring state of Kerala, ensuring enough representation
on the meet from South. The team from Tamil Nadu included Pavendhan A, Nishanth CV, Gowathaman Ganesan and Harish
G Mallaya.
With different travel plans, all of us have landed on the Camp site, which is the forest guest house located in the Dzongu
Valley, exactly at the place where a tributary of River Teesta joins the main river on 2nd evening. It was such a beautiful
place and we were welcomed by intermittent rains throughout the afternoon of 2nd September. This was a worrying factor,
which continued to be the worrying factor for days to come too. People have been provided tents to stay with lady members
and a few others within the guest house. Couple of us travelling from Coimbatore (I (Pavendhan) and Nishanth) had an op-
portunity to travel with Mr. Isaac Kehimkar from Bagdogra Airport to the Guest House by car together along with couple of
more participants from Mumbai. It was a good outing as we exchanged lot of information on the status of butterflies and
listened to many experiences from Mr. Isaac Kehimkar, who is the author of the new book– Butterflies of India (A BNHS pub-
lication). He is currently associated with iNaturefoundation, Mumbai which focus on spreading the knowledge and aware-
ness of nature to all.