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Participation in Munnar WLS Birds & Butterfly Survey
Munnar Wildlife Division, Kerala Forests & Wildlife Department in association with TNHS (Travancore Natural History Society)
conducted a Birds, Butterflies and Odonates Survey, during the month of Dec 2018. This was a four day exercise. A few mem-
bers of TNBS including A Pavendhan and CV Nishanth participated the survey. Our sincere thanks to Munnar WLD, Kerala For-
ests & Wildlife Department and , especially to Dr Kalesh Sadasivan.
It was September 2015, when we were part of this survey at Munnar and we were at Pampadum shola, a higher elevation
camp where we were able to spot species like Indian Red Admiral, Palni Bushbrown, Nilgiri Clouded Yellow, Black Prince, Ever-
shed’s Ace, etc. Hence, this time around, we requested to be at one of the lower elevation camps and hence we were allotted
Chinnar Wildlife Sanctuary. This is situated on the border of TN-KL and on the highways between Udumalpet and Munnar. The
place of our survey scope was scrub jungle and riparian.
There were two interesting sightings from
the camp and both of them– Ypthima singa-
la and Catochrysops panormus– were sight-
ed by A Pavendhan. Silver Forget-me-not
(Catochrysops panormus) was sighted from
river bank among mud-puddling individuals
and this was a long suspected species to
occur but for want of photographic evidence
was not confirmed. This is the first photo-
graphic evidence for the state of Kerala.
Silver Forget-me-not, Catochrysops panormus
Ypthima singala, Sinhalese Five-ring or Jewel
Four-ring is a species occurring in South In-
dia and Sri Lanka. The first photographic
evidence for the South India was from Au-
gust 2015 from Vellimalai, Theni District.
During the survey, one specimen from this
species was again spotted by A Pavendhan
sitting on a small plant basking on the even-
ing light. The place was a small grassy patch
and the host plant for the same is one of the
grass species.
In total, there were 88 species sighted from
our camp and an interesting observation
was a fairly large colony of Red Pierrot.
The Hindu, Edition. Dec 2018
Narration : Pavendhan A
Pictures credit: Pavendhan A
PATTAMPOOCHI
A TNBS MAGAZINE
WINGS 3 VEINS 2
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