Date with Butterflies on Sunday , February 6 , 2011

Did you know? A butterfly tastes its food with help of its feet. Tigers, Jezebel, Sergeants, Peacocks , Commanders, Nawabs, Sailors, Barons, Rajahs are the names of butterflies. That a caterpillar weaves itself into a cocoon before it becomes a Butterfly. Also that butterflies are never attracted to Rose flowers and that some butterflies feed on alcohol.

More such startling facts about the winged beauties would be revealed to you, if you agree to have a date with Butterflies, a BCOG programme happening on February 6 , 2011 at the Butterfly Conservatory Of Goa , Rajnagar , Pisgal Priol Ponda , Goa. Our country is a host for more that 1,501 species of butterflies and an Biodiveristy hot spot like Goa is blessed to have 250 species. It is a rare person who would not be attracted by the delicate beauty of butterflies. And to help you spot these jewels and learn more about their nature and habits, the Butterfly Conservatory of Goa ( BCOG ) has been arranging a fun filled day called as ' Date with Butterflies '. The half-day programme begins with butterfly watching nature trail at the Conservatory. This is then followed by interactive sessions on Indian Butterflies and butterfly photography, Copycats in Butterflies, Wonders of Early Stages of Butterflies, Tips on gardening for butterflies.
Nature lovers should ensure they don't miss this opportunity. Entry is Rs.150 per person.The last date of registration: Feb 4 , 2011For registration, email your entries to butterflyconservatoryofgoa@gmail.com or call on 9822125474 ( Rohit ) / 9822895474 ( Jyoti ) .

Nature Appreciation Trail - 2

A perfect family outing for those inclined to spend Sunday with nature ! :

Wild flowers ; Interesting shrubs ; Fascinating Butterflies ; Beautiful Birds ! A small trail and some witty chatter - an opportunity to learn about and appreciate nature at its best.

An event meant for the whole family between 9:00 am to 12:30 pm beginning at the Butterfly Conservatory of Goa ( www.bcogoa.org ), Ponda followed by a short trek to the Bhutkhambh Plateau.

Call us on 9822125474 ( Rohit ) / 9822895474 ( Jyoti ) / 9049853484 ( Prasad ) for more details .


Spot registrations also open. Entry Rs.150 per person – entire proceeds will be donated to BCOG to purchase plants.
www.bcogoa.org

Nature Appreciation Trail on January 26 , 2011

A perfect family outing for those inclined to spend January 26th holiday in scenic outdoors :

Wild flowers ; Interesting shrubs ; Fascinating Butterflies ; Beautiful Birds ! A small trail and some witty chatter - an opportunity to learn about and appreciate nature at its best.

An event meant for the whole family between 9:00 am to 12:30 pm begining at the Butterfly Conservatory of Goa ( http://www.bcogoa.org/ ), Ponda followed by a short trek to the Bhutkhambh Plateau. Call us on 9822125474 ( Rohit ) / 9822895474 ( Jyoti ) for more details .


Spot registrations also open. Entry Rs.150 per person – entire proceeds will be donated to BCOG to purchase plants.

Woes of naming the plants

Watakakakaka...can't figure out where the kakas end , just like in banananana. Getting the name to stop at the right place is a lot easier than identifying the plant in the wild. I am equipped with pretty decent photos of the host plants of butterflies along with their :

1. Common name

2. The vernacular name

3.The botanical name

4. Classification details

5. Fairly good description of what it flowers like , seeds like , fruits like, smells like or tastes like.

But it is God given talent to actually identify them - thats something that's hopelessly missing with me . Why ? I can't even place people's faces even if I saw them everyday. And these are green leaves , all looking similiar.

I need a botanist . A good one ! We had the good fortune of two of them visiting us . One was the page ( pronounced paa-gay ) family - Nuvendu was damn good ! The other was Nandan Kalbag . Wish we had atleast one of such treasures in Goa !

Meanwhile it is a painful trial and error . The wrong plants would invariablely sprout leaves instantly and the correct ones would shrivel and dry. And the ambitious butterfly breeding program takes a few steps behind.

Some of the success stories :

Southern Birdwings on some aristolochia plant ( maybe tagala or indica )

Tamil lacewings on passion fruit creeper

Giant Redeyes and palm fly on yellow palm

Common Mime on cinnamon

Blue Mormon on lemon and orange shrubs

Blue Tiger Moth on the freshwater mangrove

Monkey puzzle on Ixora

Red Pierrots on kalanchoe and bryophyllum

Baron on mango

Tawny Costers on passion flower

Common Mormons on curry leaves ( Murraya indica )

Yamfly on smilax

Lascar on zizypus.....and sailors on God knows what

We re-open !!

It has been a furious monsoon ! Started in May , it still continues well into its 6th month . While we welcome the extra dose of water , it has wreaked havoc in the conservatory. Almost a month late , we have finally reopened the park on November 9th . It was raining that day as well , but we were committed to welcoming the first batch of tourists from Thomak Cook . And so we did ! Thankfully the rains stopped for a wee bit , but the butterflies were still hiding .

The week end was awesome though . And the visitors for Saturday and Sunday were treated to a feast of butterflies. The Redspot Duke has made his reappearance .

The Southern Birdwing Pupae in on the verge of emerging out .

And the Red Pierrots are all over the place .

Yes ! We are open and ready for action ! Come and join us !!

Spreading Wings !

The Butterfly family just got bigger ! We welcome Animesh and Jigisha in our fold . With them comes not only an additional 2500 sqm to expand the conservatory ,but more importantly the marketing brains of Animesh. A successful biz wizard and with an international footprint, he would be bringing the much needed commercial viability to our efforts.

The ifoundbutterfly.org article

Since the link to the above website is down , putting up the unedited article that appears on it. Will be removed once the link is up and again ( http://www.ifoundbutterflies.org/conservation/the-butterfly-conservatory-of-goa ) courtesy Mr Krushnemegh Kunte. Don't remember the citation either..

Our story - Yashodan and Jyoti Heblekar

The Yashodan Version

The learned group stood in a semi circle staring at the sloping roof of the house. The first one to speak , the one with his hand rubbing his chin thoughtfully , declared , “ Its going to leak from day one of the rains !” . The other pundit of gloom agreed ,” You underestimate the weight of wet soil . And you have planted ficus , bamboo and cane . The weight is going to crack the slab and the roots are going to go through . Don’t be surprised to see the root hairs peering through your ceiling.” The last one was more sympathetic, “I think the soil will wash down with the rains. That should actually solve your problem of removing it. No way is it going to remain on such a steep gradient”.

That was 4 years ago. The house was constructed a year earlier to that. Doesn’t leak. The soil is still there. No root hairs through my ceiling. Not yet. They are yet to find a crack to peep through. The wet soil ensures that the concrete slab does not expand or contract. And keeps the house cool throughout the year including summer.

This article is about butterflies and conservation. So what’s that to do with this? Lots actually! But will touch upon it later.

In Goa, being a professional naturalist or “wildlifer” is a damn glamorous career. Unlike Mr.Kunte’s early tryst at bride hunting, Goan fathers would happily give their daughters in marriage to these freaks chasing butterflies and birds. You go to one of those social dos, and you are introduced as a wildlife photographer, they go “ahhhh”. Page 3 of Goa times carry their mug shots all the time. Not me though! I am the guy standing lonely at the corner with a glass of soda. Because I sell insurance. Very unpopular and a tribe that everybody avoids like plague…or in these times H1N1. Well ! I don’t even own a good camera to pretend to be one.

Before that, another story. Trust me! All the threads lead to butterflies. Our life in city was picture perfect like the ones on the age old Doordarshan daily soaps : claustrophobic flats , restricted tap water , raucous neighbours , sultry summers and a ceiling like a barbeque grill. My wife, Jyoti gave me an ultimatum. Staying in the city or moving into a village. Read that as - Short commute to office or staying married to a pretty wife. Tough choice!

To begin with we had to construct a house in the village. The plot we bought was small. But it had to comply with all the wifely conditions viz Unending supply of water, lots of garden space, huge windows on all sides and view of green mountains all day long. Difficult! especially if the house takes up almost all the plot space. So we put up the garden on the roof. The whole house got built on deep and wide rainwater tanks. Huge windows were the easiest part. The last condition: view of green mountains- Impossible with the real estate guy wanting to give away the hill slope for mass housing to a few hundred migrants – needless to mention illegal constructions. It was like the city was chasing us in the village too! Neck deep in mortgage after the house construction, buying out that hill slope to stop that was like getting the credit cess-pool up right under the nostrils. We bought it. Since then have ensured that credit card companies remain in good profits.

What do we do with a relatively barren hill slope full of cashew trees? ( Other than enjoy nuts and fruits of cashew through the summer) .It was too small for agriculture plus had no natural water source. Simple! Pump the rainwater from our house tanks up the hill a few hundred metres away, flow it down again like a stream. Plant many many trees alongside – all local. Each chosen carefully to attract or breed butterflies. And start a butterfly park. Yeah! I still sell insurance. Lots of it. After all I have got a butterfly park to run and maintain ( besides my family – God bless them ! all very frugal in their needs ). Important to mention though , that the entire running of the butterfly park is handled by my better half – an off shoot of my very good negotiating skills .

Someday I will buy a good camera. And be called a “wildlifer” . Till that time , be a damn good insurance salesman. General Insurance , not life. True story – all of it.

The Jyoti Version

Yashodan believes he is good at sales . Someday he will get over his delusion. From a person who can’t just remember faces and whose negotiating skills are as good as Sourav Ganguly’s fielding , you don’t expect hardcore sales . People like him and that’s why he does well – period ! But he is good in butterflies and snakes and the numerous tiny critters and everything wild. It keeps him happy . And everyone likes a happy person – even if he sells insurance.

Every holiday , armed with nuggets of information from the learned visitors , loads of books on the subject of butterflies and the friendly dhangars ( Shepherds ) – at the risk of intense ridicule – we go around collecting weeds that supposedly attract butterflies like magnets. We plant those in our conservatory. Every morning , the local fruit seller is paid a visit for the discarded stock of fruits – rotten and damaged ; Hate to think what he might be thinking about a lady who comes on a car to buy rotten fruits . A million small sacrifices of stuff that I always wanted to buy but didn’t so that we could keep the conservatory running and paying the salaries of workers. And I am often asked the question : Why ?

Why the garden on the roof ? Why storing so much of rainwater when you have good supply of piped water – at the risk of a weak foundation ? Why compost pits all around the house – a sure way of inviting rats and in turn snakes ? Why spend so much on a butterfly park when you hardly get any visitors ? Why ?

I am not much into butterflies . Yashodan shows me a cerulean and a plains cupid . And they both look same to me. I am also certain that skippers are actually moths. But I love the Tawny costers and Tamil Lacewings because I have raised them like kids sacrificing my passion flower plants. My six year daughter can identify a monkey puzzle better than the pokemon characters – and I love it . My son , all of 12 years , is a snake expert . He climbs trees , swims in ponds and is every bit of Mowgli , yet excels in his studies. Mature kids , both of them . Not Yashodan though – he still runs down excited, like a 5 year old , each time he photographs a “new” butterfly on his downright amateur camera . That would 87 times running down to show me, in the last one year because that’s the count of different butterflies in our park . His only exercise .

That’s why !

I don’t ever worry about water . Don’t need to put on the air-conditioner . No trips to the garbage bin like we needed to each night in the city. Don’t feel like a hypocrite when I talk green because I live green . Yes ! I don’t talk green. I wake up everyday morning and I have my own park to walk my two German Shepards. My own flowers to offer to the Gods . Our own stream for the kids to play in.

That’s why !

We didn’t know if butterflies would ever come when we started work on the butterfly park . At the most 20 to 25 species , I was told by Yashodan. 87 and still counting – we don’t know from where and how . There were no plans or designs made ; randomly improvised . One week we put up the stream , another week it was the bamboo bridge . Turtle pond the next . We see something nice , we buy . Not on month ends though. Lots of money and effort in it already gone . I tell Yashodan – Don’t get depressed ,the butterflies are in ; someday we will have lots of visitors too. Actually ridiculous to say so , because it’s not him , its me ! He is always happy . That’s good for sales, isn’t it ?

That’s why !

Someday he need not sell any more insurance and instead chase butterflies all day long.
Someday I shall return to my medical practice . And buy him a good camera.

That’s why !