A 45-year-old entrepreneur is on a mission to document the butterflies of Jawadhu and Yelagiri Hills.
E. Arun Kumar, in the last two to three years, has spotted and clicked 85 species of the nectar-feeding insect with his camera, including a number of rarely-spotted varieties in this part of the State.
It was his tryst with colours and creativity — his family business being saree-manufacturing in Arni — that turned his focus on butterflies. For the last few years, he has been trailing them across many regions.
“When I moved to Chennai, I started going on forest trips to the Sunderbans and Andaman Islands. I thought why not document things that I see, and started to pay attention to one life form — butterflies,” Mr. Kumar, who manages a family-run hotel in Vellore, said.
Disclosing that the Eastern Ghats had always mesmerised him, he said he began to focus on hotspots in Jawadhu Hills — Amirthi Forest and Bhiman Falls in Vellore and Padavedu in Tiruvannamalai.
“Plenty of butterfly research is going on in Kerala, Maharashtra and parts of Tamil Nadu such as the Coimbatore belt. But our area has been left out, and so, I wanted to focus on Jawadhu, which has a rich ecology. So far, I have photographed 85 species in Jawadhu and Yelagiri Hills. Of this, 65 were spotted in Amirthi forest alone,” he pointed out.
By the end of 2017, Mr. Kumar expects to spot 125 species here. “There are at least 1,200 species of butterflies in India, and 321 in Tamil Nadu. Butterflies are very important for our ecosystem as it determines its health,” he added.
Tough task
But the task on hand is not easy. After four to five hours of trekking inside a forest, at times it takes at least 45 minutes to an hour of waiting, to capture one, especially the rare species, on his camera.
“Sometimes, I have to lie on the ground to click a photograph. You just need to know where to find them. Male butterflies engage in mud-puddling through which they take minerals and salts. These mud-puddling spots have to be identified,” he explained.
A member of the Tamil Nadu Butterfly Society, Mr. Kumar said he could identify at least 200 to 250 species. Some of the rarely-found butterfly species that he had spotted in Amirthi forest included Common Banded Peacock, Common Silver Line, Yellow Pansy, Baronet, Common Nawab and Common Snow Flat.
Fascinated by nature’s vibrancy, he wants to document birds and wildlife next.
