Beautiful Butterfly

Hello lovely people, I hope you and your family are doing fine. Day by day COVID cases is going up so it is very critical to take precautions to ensure we are safe. I am sure you are taking the utmost care.

The situation is not permitting to visit new places but I am making sure that I keep you updated with something unique every time. It is 4 months and we are locked up and still helpless with no clue on vaccine timelines.

Today I just took a little walk of wetland which is located 2KM from my home. The intention was to take a nature walk to get some breather from a negative environment and to try to see if I get some good shots for all of you. With all required precautions like mask and sanitizer, it was a different experience because of fear of COVID in mind

I was very excited to capture birds but surprisingly found this unique creature roaming around and my attention got diverted to them from birds. Capturing Butterflies is super fun because of the kind of color and pattern it offers. Until now, we used to ignore this little creature because birds and animals used to be a priority. However, today in the absence of birds and animals it made me realize the importance of it, and hence I spent a lot of time with them. To find out why attention got diverted and why I feel crazy about butterflies suddenly we need to jump to the next section. 

Exceptional Life Cycle

The life cycle of a butterfly is one of its kind, it’s such a different journey this lovely creature pass through which I believe is not comparable to any other species. So many butterflies we saw in our routine life but hardly pay attention to it and we don’t even bother to know about it. So let me update you on uniqueness. 

All butterflies have "complete metamorphosis." To grow into an adult they go through four stages: egg, larva, pupa, and adult

Winged adults lay eggs (1^st stage) on the food plant on which their larvae, known as caterpillars (2^nd stage), will feed. So little caterpillars, which our kids love the most is nothing but young insect stage of a butterfly

The caterpillars grow, sometimes very rapidly, and when fully developed, pupate 3^rd stage) in a chrysalis

When metamorphosis is complete, the pupal skin splits, the adult insect climbs out, and after its wings have expanded and dried (4^th stage), it flies off

Some butterflies, especially in the tropics, have several generations in a year, while others have a single generation, and a few in cold locations may take several years to pass through their entire life cycle. Check out the DSLR section to see the life cycle display. 

Isn’t it unique? Amazing life span, this colorful insect passes through to get wings and fly. Now let’s explore a few more interesting details as well

Colorful facts

People love watching colorful butterflies float from flower to flower. But from the tiniest blues to the largest swallowtails, how much do you really know about these insects? Here are interesting butterfly facts you'll find fascinating.

Butterfly Wings Are Transparent

Thousands of tiny scales cover butterfly’s wings and these scales reflect light in different colors. However, underneath all of those scales, a butterfly wing is actually formed by layers of chitin—the same protein that makes up an insect's exoskeleton. These layers are so thin you can see right through them. As a butterfly ages, scales fall off the wings, leaving spots of transparency where the chitin layer is exposed

Butterflies Taste with Their Feet

Butterflies have taste receptors on their feet to help them find their host plants and locate food

Butterflies Live on an All-Liquid Diet

Speaking of butterflies eating, adult butterflies can only feed on liquids—usually nectar. Their mouthparts are modified to enable them to drink, but they can't chew solids

Butterflies Drink From Mud Puddles

A butterfly cannot live on sugar alone; it needs minerals, too. To supplement its diet of nectar, a butterfly will occasionally sip from mud puddles, which are rich in minerals and salts. This behavior called puddling

Butterflies Often Live Just a Few Weeks

Once it emerges from its chrysalis as an adult, a butterfly has only two to four short weeks to live, in most cases. During that time, it focuses all its energy on two tasks: eating and mating

Butterflies Are Nearsighted but Can See Colors

Within about 10–12 feet, butterfly eyesight is quite good. Anything beyond that distance gets a little blurry. Despite that, butterflies can see not just some of the colors that we can see, but also a range of ultraviolet colors that are invisible to the human eye

I believe the qualities which this insect is made up of is just incomparable, we should teach such minute details to our next generation so as they can understand and respect the mother nature. I hope you liked the story of this street dancer, do let me know your feedback on btwildart@gmail.om

Learning of the day

State Bird of Jammu and Kashmir 

Black-necked crane

BT Wild Art

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Life Cycle of Butterfly 

Euploea core, the common crow butterfly

Great Eggfly, also called the Blue Moon Butterfly

The Blue Tiger Butterfly

Street Dancer - Pied KF

Dear friends, hope you and your family are in the best of health, please take due care because the rainy season brings many more scope of illness along with rain. In current times we cannot afford any careless attitude hence take extra care and be safe.

It is a long gap now for trip reports and the new addition of species in my watch list so whenever I miss them I refer my photo repository to get a feel of old time. While going through the database I found this little exciting bird and quickly decided to publish the same in today’s blog

This little street dancer “Pied Kingfisher” is very cute bird and in my favorite list, let me open the facts one by one next section and update you on the story of why I name this bird as a dancing star.

Street Dancer

Pied Kingfisher is known for its hunting habit and the style of hunting is unique from all other Kingfisher birds in the family. The style of hunting is hovering prior to attacking the prey. It hovers for a while in the air for a while before locking the target or you can say it has finalized the target and because in happiness it dances in the air for a while and after hovering it immediately attack and get the fish right under its bill from the river.

The pied kingfisher is the largest of the ‘hovering’ birds. Hovering describes the ability to stay in one place while flying. It is just a matter of the time that it starts hovering and gets fish from the river; it is a very sharp and accurate attack on the target. They hunt by hovering 50-65 feet above the water and then diving headfirst (or rather, bill-first) into the water. Pied kingfishers demonstrate spectacular speed and agility on the hunt. Isn’t it amazing! Of course, it is and there are many more facts, which are equally interesting so let go to the next section to see other qualities of this litter bird. 

Fascinating Facts

Pied Kingfisher’s eyes have adapted to spot the exact position of fish from above. Once the kingfisher spots the prey, refractions in the water don’t affect its vision. It has the ability to correct according to refraction and react to sudden movements of its prey

It is the only black and white kingfisher. Males have a double black band across their breast and females have a black chest that is often broken with a white stripe in the middle

When perched they usually bob their heads and flick up their tail. They are fast-moving and fly at speeds of up to 50 km/hr

Pied kingfishers never hunt on land. Their diet consists predominantly of fish, with a few crustaceans on the side. Fish is their favorite meal; they can swallow their prey in mid-flight

They also eat small crustaceans, dragonfly larvae, mollusks, and frogs. The one definitive dietary rule is that their food is always aquatic

You Won’t Spot the Pied Kingfisher’s Nest in a Tree. Pied kingfishers make their nests close to water. They make them by digging out holes in vertical mud banks!  These peculiar nests are generally 4-5 feet deep

The King of Kingfishers, simply watching the pied kingfisher in action will demonstrate the array of superpowers that it has. It is a record-breaker, expert flier, skilled hunter and best of all – loves to socialize

Think of Pied Kingfishers as Mythical ‘Rude’ Birds. Rudis is the Latin word for ‘rude’ or ‘wild’. The ‘mythical wild’ is an appropriate name for a bird with almost fantastical hunting skills!

So many qualities and hardly few we know, I hope you liked the story of this street dancer, do let me know your feedback on btwildart@gmail.om

Learning of the day

State Bird of Himachal Pradesh

The western Tragopan (Jujurana) or western horned Tragopan

BT Wild Art

DSLR Section