1
My Best Butterfly Moment 2019
Pavendhan A
The year 2019 was full of moments and could not single out one moment which would be unfair to other moments. Every one
of them is close to my heart. So, this will be a kind of quick re-cap to what I have personally got involved with and blessed to
carry out many of those under TNBS banner.
We continue to focus on the magazines, third year in the running, which is primarily aimed at registering all that is significant
about butterflies, with reference to Tamil Nadu. My thanks to all the contributors and the editorial team, with special
reference to Theivaprakasham and others. We had great opportunities in conducting first ever integrated survey of birds and
butterflies in Coimbatore Forest Division, and repeat survey at Sathyamangalam Tiger Reserve. My sincere thanks to DFO of
CFD, CCF & FD of STR, DFO of STR and all other officers for the faith they had in us. My thanks to TNBS team, CNS team and
WWF team and all other participants of this survey. My special thanks to D Boominathan of WWF and PR Selvaraj of CNS.I also
had the fortune of authoring along with STR senior management, a book on Birds and Butterflies of STR, in both English and
Tamil. This is very economically priced to reach everyone. My thanks to Kadu magazine team in bringing out couple of articles
on butterflies (an introduction article and a Western Ghats butterfly special) written by me. Also, thanks to The Hindu for
bringing out a special write-up on the Coimbatore Formation Day. And to Vinayan, in accommodating a section on Butterflies in
Tamil, in the Butterflies of Parambikulam Tiger Reserve book. We were happy to be part of dissemination exercises for school
children, college students, field level people. Also participated in seminars. My thanks to those who has invited us to do this.
And to the main business of chasing butterflies, thanks to the close-knit team of Sravan Kumar, Nishanth, Ramanasaran and
Darshan, we had fun-filled and fruitful Sundays, whenever it was possible. I also made a visit to NE India for the annual NEBM.
It was held at Namdapha Tiger Reserve, Arunachal Pradesh, this year. Kudos to Minom, Roshan, Kamalji and others for the
wonderful meet. I was also particularly happy that we brought out Kallar-200, a report on long term study of Kallar, which
yielded 200 butterfly species. We also had our moments following the migration of Danainae butterflies, Emigrants and Painted
Ladies. My thanks to Thenkoodu organisers for selecting me for an award in recognition of the butterfly related works. Special
thanks to Mr Balakrishnan in recommending my case. And my sincere thanks to the TNBS core team, Gopalakrishnan, Viswa
Nathan, Bala Krishnan, Nishanth, Theivaprakasham, Ramana and Sravan for the continuous encouragement and being part of
all the exercises that I was involved with. It is all teamwork, end of the day! And thanks to all other members, friends and well-
wishers for a successful year for TNBS and for me personally. Looking forward to 2020, where there are some exciting things
waiting to happen and need to fulfil some big responsibilities entrusted upon!
And to those wonderful 209 butterfly species which were kind enough to show up during the year, from Painted Sawtooth to
Wax Dart, a big thanks note! They are the reasons for this little long note.
PATTAMPOOCHI
A TNBS MAGAZINE
WINGS 4 VEINS 2
7