Flutterfly Post

With so many butterflies flocking to the lake of late, it seems appropriate to get experts to identify them and take good pix of these fleeting, flighty beauties.     

In June came Ms. Chinmayi, a lepidopterist from Banashankari and she photographed and identified quite a few of the butterflies. Read about her visit here.

Last week Dr. Kunal Angola and Naveen, research scholars from the Butterfly Park at Bannerghatta spent a good two hours at the lake. Their visit opened our eyes to more of these pretties. 

Butterflies don't really need exotic plants. The common weed Tridax (Coat Button) will do very nicely, thank you. This is the daisy like flower which like most kids, we have once held tightly between the thumb and forefinger and snapped off its head. 

The giant milkweed being another favourite of a large number of butterflies, we have let it grow lush and wild at the lake. We have one white flower variety and the rest are the more common lavender colour. As mentioned on Wikipedia, it has a host of medicinal uses; is a revered plant and has been mentioned in the Mahabharata as well.

Till it was pointed out, we never noticed butterflies on the trunks of certain trees. Apparently, the sap of the Cassia trees is food for the Common Castor butterflies. It got its name from the Wild Castor (growing literally wild at some parts of the lake bund!) Several small birds like the Prinias and Bulbuls are fond of the Castor. 

Common Castors

Common Castors with green insects

More Common Castors

Common Grass Yellow

Wild Castor jungle

Our excitement with butterflies is not only because they are so pretty but also because they are supposed to be good environmental bio-indicators.

Shutterbugs, do visit the lake and see if you can do better with your high zoom cameras!

Usha

Photos: Nupur Jain, Usha 

Butterflies at Puttenahalli Lake

Of late we have been seeing a marked increase in the number of butterflies at the lake. We'd just planted the butterfly attracting shrubs and most are yet to flower so this cannot be why the butterflies are flitting around in such large numbers. 

Rather than break our heads seeking explanations and trying to identify the colourful butterflies, we sought help from Chinmayi S.K. a keen lepidopterist from Banashankari to visit the lake. She did so on 6th June and during her visit, she recorded as many as 15 species of butterflies. 

Here are Chinmayi's observations, some of the butterflies she photographed.

Species observed:

  

      Common Emigrant (on a Button Coat flower)

Plain Tiger

Striped Tiger

  

Dark Blue Tiger (on a Crown flower/ Calotropis gigantea)

Yellow Pansy (on a Lantana plant)

Peacock Pansy

Others (no pics)

Lemon Pansy 

Daniad Eggfly

Common Jezebel

Pale Grass Blue

Common Mormon

Crimson Rose

Grass Yellow ?

Lime 

Double Banded Crow 

Behaviour observed: 

The Common Emigrant, Dark Blue Tiger, Lime and Double Banded Crow were migrating in huge numbers.

The Button Coat flowers serve as excellent nectar plants. The newly planted plants are yet to be a major attractor of butterflies. 

Visit the lake and see how many of these butterflies you can spot!

Usha