Butterfly walk at Tamhini Wildlife Sanctuary, Pune, Maharashtra, India dt 07/03/2021 (Sunday).
It was our fourth butterfly walk to Tamhini forest/ Wild life Sanctuary.
The final exams of my son Kushal got over on 03rd March and he was desperate to go out for Butterflying. he had made up his mind to visit Tamhini only. So we decided to go to Tamhini on Sunday.
Tamhini has a very rich habitat for flora and fauna. During our last 3 visits in the month of Jan 2021 we got lots of surprises from the butterfly observations.
Following were the members of Butterflies of Pune Group:
Mahesh Ghanekar
Pavan Damoor
Kushal Damoor (studying in std 9th)
We left Pune early morning around 6:30 am and reached our destination at 7:35 am. The construction of the road to Tamhini is in full swing and now from Chandani Chowk one can reach within a hour itself, so we enjoyed our journey.
The weather was cold in the morning. As the butterfly activity starts a bit late after sunrise, so we decided to do a bit of birding observations first. We spent an hour on one of the stream and managed to click few photos of the birds.
Sharing the list of Birds spotted-
1) Indian Paradise Flycatcher (male & Female)
2) Rosefinch
3) White-bellied Drongo
4) Square-tailed Bulbul
5) Golden-fronted Leaf bird
6) Verditer Flycatcher
7) red vented bulbul
8) Red Whiskered bulbul
9) House Sparrow
10) Jungle Crow
11) Shikra
12) Black Eagle
13) White cheeked barbet
14) Bunting
15) Cattle Egret
16) Golden Oriole (female)
17) Long tailed Shrike
18) Purple rumped Sunbird
19) Red breasted flycathcer
20) Tree Pipit
21) Black Drongo
22) laughing Dove
23) Spotted Dove
24) White throated Kingfisher
25) Common Iora
26) Jungle babbler
27) Jungle Myna
Around 9 am we had a quick breakfast "Kanda Poha" and started our walk towards another stream for our butterfly observations.
There are plenty of water streams in the forest trail of Tamhini. This time we had decided to explore a larger stream so we had to walk approx 2 kms in to the forest to reach the main part of the stream. This stream had patches of water everywhere and we could see that the butterfly activity had already started.
I had visited this stream 3 years before, so had forgotten the way.
Mahesh who is a birder has visited this stream plenty of times so he was aware of path. due to this we were able to reach the spot more faster.
It was cold in the morning but gradually the heat started increasing later and at one point we could not bear the heat.
We had carried food and water with us, but in the late afternoon there was no water left and we were almost dehydrated. I had carried the orange flavor sugar candy with me which we consumed the whole day and tried quenching our thirst with the candy only. we were sprinkling the water on our faces from the stream to get a bit relaxed.
This stream where we visited surprised us with plenty of mud puddling observations and new lifers too.
Sharing the list of Butterfly species spotted/ observed during our walk.
1) Lemon Pansy
2) Chocolate Pansy
3) Yellow Pansy
4) Common Four-ring
5) Grass Jewel
6) Lesser grass blue
7) Common Sailer
8) Common Jezebel (in flight)
9) Common Sergeant
10) Great Eggfly
11) Daniad Eggfly
12) grass yellow
13) Glassy Tiger
14) Blue tiger / Dark Blue
15) Plain Tiger (in flight)
16) Striped tiger
17) common Hedge blue
18) Forget-me-not
19) Common Pierrot
20) Angled Pierrot
21) Rustic
22) Common Lascar
23) Common Leopard
24) Dark Cerulean
25) Pea blue
26) Tailless line blue
27) Commander
28) Common Mormon (in flight)
29) Psyche
30) Blue Mormon
31) Plain Tawny Rajah (in flight)
32) Gull
33) Lemon Emigrant
34) Club Beak
35) Red Helen (puddling)
36) Slate flash
37) Lime Swallowtail
38) Grass Demon
39) Common Crow
40) Quaker
41) Double Banded Judy
42) Tiny Grass Blue
43) Common Evening Brown
44) Common Map
45) Common Nawab
46) Sahyadri Blue Oak leaf (puddling)
47) Water snow flat
48) Spotted Small flat
49) Common Baron
50) Common Castor
51) Mottled Emigrant
52) Silverline (species yet to be identified)
53) Pointer Ciliate Blue
Today's Showstopper and lifers
54) Colour Sergeant
55) Gaudy Baron
56) Black Prince
We got our first butterfly Common Gull at 9:15 am and the last Common Evening brown at 2:00 pm.
As we had no water left with us so we decided to pack up. We started to walk back to the village Tamhini where we had parked the car. On our way i spotted the Narrow banded bluebottle which was in flight and had just landed down on a stream for few seconds to mud puddle, but could not click a photo. As soon as we reached the village we looked for a grocery store purchased water and quenched our thirst.
It was a wonderful day for all three of us with plenty of surprises and learning too.
One thing i have observed and learnt that the Swallowtails start the mud puddling activity late afternoon from 1 pm onward's.
Secondly carry plenty of water while you are on the field.
Will share the photos shortly.
Happy Butterflying to all..
