Wednesday, August 20, 2008

16 Aug 2008 Talawe Butterfly watch

Flowers




Some moth caterpillar. I saw the same kind of caterpillar in the cabbage.


Some butterfly caterpillar


Dragon Fly


Peacock Pansy


Solomon Arab


Moth caterpillar




Moth caterpillar food plant


Might be lime butterfly caterpillar


and its food plant

Saturday, August 09, 2008

Talawe - 9th August 2008

Common Grass Yellow laying egg on its food plant (Sesbania)


Egg of the common grass yellow


Food plant of common grass yellow - Sesbania


Tamarix aphylla ( Faresh , Athel tree ) mainly a tree of drier regions. Grows in saline soils. Scale like leaves.
http://www.answers.com/topic/tamarix-1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamarisk

Plant


Buds of the flower


Flowers of the plant


Caterpillar found on the above plant


Caterpillar of unid butterfly/moth (on Bor plant)


Cocoon of the above caterpillar


Damselfly

Sunday, August 03, 2008

Airoli 3rd August 2008

Started morning 7:30 from the mudflats behind sector 14 bus stop along with
Julius (leader), Amit, Mangesh and Rupali

Waders (Common redshank, common sandpiper, Curlew sandpiper in breeding plumage), common kingfisher, Magpie robin, Brahminy kite.

Then we headed towards the open ground next to Patni.
Before reaching there Julius showed us a trail going into the mangroves on the left.

It turned out to be a wonderful trail followed by trail on the ground next to Patni We saw

Butterflies (Grey pansy, peacock pansy, common gull, salmon arab, Common Grass Yellow, Blue tiger, Common Jezebel)
Blue Tiger


Had seen its caterpillar and pupas at Talawe.
12th July we saw the caterpillar.
19th July weekend we found a lot of green pupas and few ripe ones on the same plant. 26th July Julius saw a blue tiger coming out of these.
Food plant is called wattakaka.


Peacock Pansy


Insects (Jewel beetle, grasshopper)
This is an amazing spider. I have seen these different sizes. This one was a big one.


There were a lot of Grasshoppers hopping around. Got a good angle on this one and it big compared to others.


Birds (Little heron, White breasted waterhen with chicks, White cheeked bulbul, Yellow eyed babbler which was very vocal, plain and ashy prinias, black headed munias, Fantail Flycatcher, Clamourous Reed Warbler, Grey heron, sparrows collecting grasshoppers, Red munias, Scaly breasted munias, Zitting cisticola, Black kites and more)

Yellow Eyed Babbler. This one is an interesting bird. At this time of the year it was very vocal and very very active.


And also Julius introduced us to some mangrove plants which were flowering and some plants which are found around Mangroves.

http://www.mangroves.godrej.com/GodrejNew/Templates/CommonLinks/Environment/MangroveVegetation.htm#MangroveVegetation
http://www.wildsingapore.com/chekjawa/text/m104.htm
http://www.wildsingapore.com/chekjawa/text/m101.htm

Grey or White Mangrove variety (Avicennia marina) Fruit


Grey or White Mangrove variety (Avicennia officinalis) Flower


Grey or White Mangrove variety (Avicennia alba) Fruit


Blind-your-eye tree (Excoecaria agallocha)
The white sap of this tree is know to blind the eye temporarily. It also causes blisters and irritation of the skin.