Trip Report:        Wild Valley Farm

Dates:                   24-26 June 2017

Camp:                   Wild Valley Farm

Who:                     A

This post comes after a considerable gap – I missed posting on four trips – to Sunderbans, BRT TR and (two to) Masinagudi – in this interim.

A and I intended to focus on butterflies in and around the farm and that’s what we did. On a walk a little before sunset, we ran into a sloth bear just by the main road. The bear stood staring at us as long as we stood motionless, but fled as soon as we moved to click a picture. On the same walk, A almost stepped on a tiny Bronzeback Tree Snake and it slithered away with all the desperate speed it could muster. A snake killed a juvenile Black-naped Hare by the campsite on the farm. We were at the other end of the grass patch and by the time we walked over, the snake had decamped at the disturbance, leaving the little carcass behind. Mr. Daniel suspected it was the big fat rat snake that usually haunted this spot.

Here are the butterflies we saw. Species sighted but not photographed were Peacock Pansy, Yellow Pansy, Common Lascar, Common Jezebel, Yellow Orange-tip, Blue Mormon, Common Castor, Common Rose, Common Grass Yellow, Tawny Coster and Common Crow.

Papilionidae – Swallowtails

Common Mormon mud-puddling (Pic by A):

Crimson Rose:

Lycaenidae – Gossamer-winged butterfiles

Oriental Gram Blue:

Hedge Blue (wrongly ID’d as Grass Blue, and pointed out by both VV and KS):

Red Pierrot:

Yamfly:

Nymphalidae – brush-footed butterflies

Chocolate Pansy:

Common Fourring:

Common Leopard:

Common Fivering:

Lemon Pansy:

Plain Tiger:

Striped Tiger:

Pieridae – Whites and yellows

Common Gull:

Common Wanderer:

Great Orange-tip:

Pioneer:

White Orange-tip:

Oyster mushrooms (Pic by A):

Moult, probably rat snake:

The weather and the farm were equally lovely (Pic by A):