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My Best Butterfly Moment 2019
Naveen
1st half of 2019 is a wonderful year for me in terms of wildlife sightings as i went to Madhav NP, Kuno Palpur WLS in MP,
Sulnatpur NP in Haryana, Surajpur Wetlands and Okhla BS in Delhi. All these trips were meant for birding and i not used to
observe butterflies much. They were like vandha laabam varlaina nastam illa feeling.
But My butterfly experience started only after i got my posting to Tinsukia, Assam. The home which I have take for rented
accommodation here alone has 45 butterfly species including Nawab, Grey count, Red Based Jezebel, spotted and common
palmfly, sailors, lascar, sergeant, Cerulean, grass blues, Browns, ypthimia etc. I started loving butterfly also here only. But
butterfly as a hobby and passion took of only after visiting Bherijan forest patch in 8.9.2019 where I sighted Oriental map,
Constable, Sullied Sailor, Dragon tail, Yeomans, fluffy tit, Metallic Cerulean, Punchinello and few more. From then my butterfly
moment had no end card so far. Then my visit to Northeast butterfly meet held at Namdhapa also gave good knowledge on
butterflies of Northeast Biome. There i met Pavendhan sir and Nishanth. Getting accustomed with them also gave knowledge
on activity of major butterfly species and their respective sighting periods. Post NEB meet, me and my wife started exploring
Bherijan and Borajan forest twice or thrice a week. These walks never disappointed us as we used to sight one or two new
species from this area regularly. Few will be lifers and others which I sighted at Namdhapa. I would like to mention about
Pavendhan sir who is like Messiah of butterflies for me. He used to identify every butterfly species i send him through
whatsapp and continuously helped me to gain some basic knowledge on butterflies.
I would like to thank Theivaprakasham also whose life cycle documentation and black background images of butterfly gave the
initial momentum towards butterflying. Now its been very long since I went for birding. Even got 105mm macro for butterflying
and kept my 500mm sigma aside in cupboard.
Now me and my wife recorded 136 species in small forest patches of Tinsukia alone without visiting Dehing Patkai WLS (Major
butterfly hotspot in tinsukia district). Even today (Jan 02, 2019) sighted an injured pallid nawab in my home. Unfortunately, it
died sooner in my home itself as it got lost its legs and couldn't fly. Since hunting and being hunted is part of food web, i didn't
think today's incident as sad one.
To promote awareness on buttefly diveristy in tinsukia district , i created a Facebook group in the name Tinsukia Nature forum
recently and inviting locals to be a part of it. It is only 10 days old. Planning to conduct walks for school and college students
also here. Let 2020 be the landmark year for me in this aspect.
PATTAMPOOCHI
A TNBS MAGAZINE
WINGS 4 VEINS 2
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