The teak tree butterfly garden

Tectona grandis.  In flower.  Our neighbour's garden

October 2nd

October brings flowers in plenty to our neighbour's teak tree.  I love to watch the tree.  I watch from our bedroom and I watch from our balcony.  Sometimes it is a Drongo that provides entertainment,  quite often the rose-ringed parakeets perch on the uppermost branch and screech indignantly while squirrels scamper up and down the tree trunk.  Today, it was the butterflies and bees show that I binge watched.

All through the day the Common Emigrants flitted ceaselessly from flower to flower, up and down, side to side.  The window frames seemed to be filled with these wandering whites.  As I followed them with my binoculars, a  Crimson Rose fluttered into view, its flight less rushed and frenzied as it gently alighted on a  flower. A light breeze rustled those large teak leaves and it flew on.

Then there was a blur of yellow, a pair of Tawny Costers and a bunch of Common Leopards flitted around on the left.  More white Common Emigrants to the right, and among them sat one Chocolate  Pansy, with its ragged wing edges, slowly circling on the same flower, unlike the other butterflies.

It was the turns of the blues then, a bunch of Blue Tigers and Glassy Tigers passed by.  They did not seem terribly interested and moved on quickly.  Teak nectar was not their favourite drink maybe? A Common Crow also drifted by, but seemed disinterested with the drinks on offer and floated away.

More Common Emigrants, yellow ones and whiter ones.  Oh wait, that yellow one opened its wings, could it be the Yellow Orange Tip (Ixias pyrene).  These butterflies generally come in after the monsoons, so have the rains brought them?   More whites, but these had black edges.  With Bhanu's Field Guide I identified them as Common Albatross Appias albina.

And into the "garden" came a much larger butterfly, solitary, green and black, fluttering its wings even as it alighted on a flower.  it was beautiful and striking, and was unfamiliar to me.  Flick through the book, peer through the binoculars, and now its gone behind the large teak leaf, hmmm a swallowtail for sure, no not a peacock, oh its back in view, I really need to learn to read Tamil, scan the book once again.  Could it be a Tailed Jay?  I need to verify.  Search in Duck Duck Go Go.   Graphium agamemnon, common and not threatened, more frequent post monsoon.  And its host plant is the Polyalthia!  Maybe that's what it was.  Nothing else fitted the bill.

The enduring Teak
and the ephemeral butterfly
Entwined.

Oct 3rd

Common Jezebels this morning, at the tree.

Oct 4th

And a pair of Danaid Eggfly were having a leisurely sip.

Oct 7th

I continue to see new species.  Today, two Common Jays chased each other from flower to flower.  At the crown, Plain Tigers fluttered through the blooms.