Rohan, thanks! You have made your year with much more than the Brown Gorgon and Jewelled Nawab. You also photographed the Pointed Palmfly (Elymnias penanga):
http://ifoundbutterflies.org/425-elymnias/elymnias-penanga This is not a species many people have seen, or even heard of. I bet most people could not even ID it if they saw if before. But now your picture is a great reference for everyone. I hope that you will get many such ³firsts² in 2012. With best regards, Krushnamegh. ------------------------------------------------- Krushnamegh Kunte, PhD Ramanujan Fellow and Reader National Center for Biological Sciences (NCBS) Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) GKVK, Bellary Road, Bengaluru 560065, India. Ph: +91 80 2366-6001/02, extension 6410 Mobile: + 91 9403-975-925 Email: [email protected], [email protected] Website: http://biodiversitylab.org/ Indian Foundation for Butterflies: http://ifoundbutterflies.org/ Emails: [email protected], [email protected] From: rohan lovalekar <[email protected]> Reply-To: butterflyindia <[email protected]> Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2012 20:46:56 +0530 To: butterflyindia <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [ButterflyIndia] Photo(s) of the year 2011 Dear Krushnamegh This is just sensational! Especially that Large Siverstripe underwing pic! That for me Shot of the year! While processing that image for IFB I really feel jealous! :) I hope we can have blast in Northeast some time in future! And I did compensated for Krishna Peacock with Brown Gorgon and Jewelled Nawab Cheers On Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 10:41 AM, Krushnamegh Kunte <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > > > Hi all, > > Here is my late entry for the ³Photo of the Year². I have been busy setting up > my lab and settling down in India since I moved back from Boston at the end of > December. Anyway, I was hoping to make two field trips to India in 2011, but I > managed to make just one. This is because I received my job offer and wanted > to make progress on some work back in Boston before I left. But that turned > out to be one wonderful whirlwind of a trip! In that month, May 2011, > following the advice of Usha Lachungpa, I visited parts of South, East, West > and North Sikkim Districts, and saw many butterfly species that I had dreamed > of for many years. Some of them were new to me, others were new only to my > camera. Gaurav Purohit joined me for two weeks, and we had a blast! I also > made a new friend, Harsha Kumar, a young and fairly inexperienced fella, who > scared away many a butterfly and made me miss many pictures that I wanted to > take, but I enjoyed our time together, anyway. Here¹s the selection from our > trip: > > Large Silverstripe (Argynnis childreni): This is a common species and anyone > who has been to mid-elevation Himalaya has probably seen this butterfly. I had > seen it many times but had never managed to take a decent picture. And then > one day we saw this individual that would not go away no matter what was going > on in its neighborhood. I even managed to take out some larger stones from its > background by hand while it was feeding. That¹s how I got a clean, diffused, > out of focus background in this picture. And I loved the green and pink in > this frame. The picture is also available online at: > > http://ifoundbutterflies.org/122-argynnis/argynnis-childreni > > Green Awlet (Burara vasutana): I had never seen this species but had been > waiting for it for years! One evening, as I walked along my favorite Pabung > Khola, a reddish-brown butterfly swung around in front of me and kept circling > round and round at super high speeds. When it finally settled on a bird > dropping, I could not take my eyes off the metallic yellow-green! You can see > why in the attached picture, and online: > > http://ifoundbutterflies.org/275-burara/burara-vasutana > > Krishna Peacock (Papilio krishna): This was another lifer for me. The only > picture I knew of this species was that of Alka Vaidya from the Eaglenest WLS, > which she had posted on this group some time ago. One day, after a morning of > heavy rains, I opted out of field work to process my samples and tidy up notes > in my field notebook. Unencumbered by such scholarly concerns about notes and > data, Gaurav and Harsha set out to look for whatever butterflies they could > photograph. They returned an hour or so afterward, their faces grinning ear to > ear! They produced two species that made me turn green: the Tailed Redbreast > (Papilio bootes) and the Krishna Peacock! Gaurav¹s picture of the Krishna > Peacock is now online (see URL below), and it is such a fantastic image! I did > not think anyone would be able to take a picture of this species coming > anywhere close in quality to Gaurav¹s picture. But then, this was Sikkim, and > just a few days later, we faced another Krishna Peacock that was just born to > pose for pictures. See what I mean: > > http://ifoundbutterflies.org/47-papilio/papilio-krishna > > I must end this narrative with perhaps my biggest discovery so far, the Scarce > Jester (Symbrenthia silana). You probably remember the history of this > species; if not, check my website and my paper on the species. I have been to > Sikkim three times, and I have seen this very rare species every single time! > The attached picture was taken at Pabung Khola, at almost exactly the same > spot where I had photographed this species one and half years before this > picture. I like to think that this individual was perhaps the > great-great-grandson of the individual that I had photographed here in 2009. > Who knows! Pictures of both the individuals are available at: > > http://ifoundbutterflies.org/173-symbrenthia/symbrenthia-silana > > I met Subhasis on this trip for the first time, and met Arjan on my way out > after a few years. Rohan, Usha and others wanted to join me on this trip but > could not for various reasons. Now that I am back in India and will be in the > field often, I hope to meet many of you in our forests to watch butterflies > together. > > Wish you a happy and very productive 2012. > > With best regards, > > Krushnamegh. > > PS: I had replied to a few emails in the past two weeks (e.g., to emails by > Subhasis and Sahil), I am not sure those emails made it to the group. I am > copying this email to Vijay in the hopes that at least this email will reach > you folks. My primary email address has changed, and there may be some hiccups > before emails from the new email address start rolling out smoothly. > > ------------------------------------------------- > > Krushnamegh Kunte, PhD > > Ramanujan Fellow and Reader > National Center for Biological Sciences (NCBS) > Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) > GKVK, Bellary Road, > Bengaluru 560065, India. > Ph: +91 80 2366-6001/02/18/19, ext 6410 > Mobile: + 91 9403-975-925 > Email: [email protected] <http://[email protected]> , > [email protected] <http://[email protected]> > Website: http://biodiversitylab.org/ > > Indian Foundation for Butterflies: http://ifoundbutterflies.org/ > Emails: [email protected] > <http://[email protected]> , [email protected] > <http://[email protected]> > > > -- Enjoy
