North East Butterfly Meet– Season IV
Day 2 (04.09.2017)
The human mind makes certain assumptions and stays with it even if the fact changes. When we all went to the bed, it was
raining and we were used to the sound the rains were making when it hit the ground and the trees. We all herd the noise
throughout the night , fearing the worst, that the rain is hitting us hard. When we woke up in the morning, we still heard the
sound, but the rain was missing. It is River Teesta which is making the noise, which made us believed that it was raining the
whole night . The river was fast and furious and was flowing with enormous strength. The sun could not convince the rain
clouds for the whole day and we have to settle for the little light we could get although it was raining only on and off.
We were slotted into Team 1 and were off to area near Lingdong. The drive was about half an hour or so. The habitat had the
river flowing on one end and the rock cut on the other side with the roads to take us to the bridge. We were dropped off a
point and started walking in. As soon as we got down, we spotted a few Veined Scrub Hopper (Aeromachus stigmata) and a
Conjoined Swift on the wet rock taking the minerals. A Punchinello and an Orange Punch (both from the Riodinidae family) was
seen. It was eventless for a while until we spotted a Popinjay checking out the bag of one of the participants. The Large Yeo-
mans were soon everywhere, but they are not in a mood to oblige any one of us. Soon, we reached the Iron Bridge and after
some customary selfie and photo shoots, we crossed the bridge and spent on the edges of the river below. We saw Yellow
Jezebel, and a few Grass Yellows here and a Yellow Flat (which I again missed). There was also a Sapphire which was turned out
to be a Dark Sapphire also called Indian Purple Sapphire.
The return was much more exciting with a Spotted Palmfly and a Blue Spotted Crow making appearing, but vanished before
anyone good get a decent picture of them. A Chocolate Demon and a Restricted/Spotted Demon were seen from the Skippers
and the Tufted Ace from the same family however was much more obliging. That sweet spot also gave us a Blue Tit, a Common
Jester. Some sharp eyes then spotted an Orange Oakleaf and a Glassy Tiger. The team also saw couple of Dark Judies, which
was missed by a few including myself. We relaxed for a while at the Buddha temple and we need to refill ur body with plenty of
fluids as the climate was pretty humid and we lost lots of fluids by sweating. The vehicle picked up as back to the camp side for
the lunch and as usual the chasing butterflies for the day, ended little earlier than we anticipated. The lunch was again a simple
Rice, Dhall, Potato and Papad, a kind of standard for most of the times.
We wish there were sessions on the afternoon, which was not the case. The Afternoon was left to us and we have to again ex-
plore areas around the camp. There is no more addition to the list we had already despite hard searches. However, a lucky few
got Great Darkie and Tailed Sulphur, on the previous day and the long time that we spent around the same place on this day
did not yield any of them. We have to settle for the Yellow Costers and Purple Sapphires only.
There was again a couple of sessions in the evening and the consolidation for the day had a count of 100+ species, both the
days, together and our personal count was around 45+ species. Many interesting species were reported which I was hearing
for the first time. It was hard to see any of those special catches as there was no mechanism to have a look at the rare catches.
With just a day left and the personal count on the lower side, we were really worried if we could see any more special ones as
it is not easy making a trip to North East every now and then.