Thursday 27 October 2011

Butterfly at Baranti

Baranti Wildlife & Nature Study Organization

If you are interested in butterflies, Fireflies, beetles, dragonflies or any other insects, Baranti Insects is an alternative for your vacation and an aid in your research. We can drive you into insect's paradise "The Baranti Hill area” where thousands of different species live .

Our goal is always to assure the best to entomologists, students, wildlife photographers and nature lovers wishing to visit The Baranti Hill and Forest Area..

We also understand that more and more travelers and researchers want to build their own itineraries according to their group and special interest.

We provide Accommodation and  food We furnish local tribal guides, vehicles, and tour itineraries for a day, a week, a month or more, for one person or a large group.


Become a Butterfly Watcher

Butterflies are some of our most colorful and graceful insects around us, and we can get much enjoyment in observing them. Here are a few tips for becoming a successful butterfly watcher.
Purchase a butterfly field guide, or get one from your local library. A butterfly identification booklet.

* Keep in mind that butterflies are most active on warm, sunny days.
* You can observe butterflies by approaching closely or by using binoculars.
* You can also photograph the butterfly, and use the photo with a field guide to identify the species.
* You can also use a butterfly net to capture a butterfly, ID the species, and then release it carefully.
* Characteristics to take note of to help you identify the species include:
* Its size in relation to other butterfliesFolded or spread wings when it is feeding
* Colors and markings on the wings, both top sides and undersides
* Flight pattern. (Skippers are known for their erratic flight pattern. Think of them as “skipping across the flowers.”)


Butterfly Buffet


We get much joy out of watching butterflies feed on the flowers in our garden, but not all butterflies feed on nectar. Some of these are the question mark, red admiral, hackberry, and skippers. These butterflies prefer manure or rotting fruit.

Minerals


Butterflies need minerals, especially males to develop sperm. We sometimes see butterflies, often in groups, sitting on sand, mud, or manure, which provides them valuable minerals. This is called “puddling.”

You can make a puddling area in a small dish in Baranti Wild Life & Nature Study Hut Garden with a mixture of sand, Epson salts or table salt, and water. A mixture of sand, water, and manure also works well. Place the dish in a sunny location in the garden and keep moist.

Fresh Fruit


Cut a wedge of fresh watermelon. Using a spoon or melon baller, scoop out small sections. The holes will fill with the juices from the watermelon. Or, cut a fresh wedge of cantaloupe and scoop out the seeds.

Rotten Fruit

Once fruit is overly ripe to your preference set it out in the garden. Peaches, apples, and grapes work well. Or, make a mixture of very ripe, mashed bananas and brown sugar. You can also add some yeast. (This concoction needs to sit in the garden fermenting for about a week, so it may not attract butterflies right away.) 


Butterfly Watching Project for Students


Butterfly watching, for some, is a hobby. For others, butterfly watching is a very serious lifetime occupation as lepidopterists. Lepidopterists are specialists in lepidopterology or the study of butterflies. Lepidoptera are butterflies. They are the second largest order of insects.


Butterfly watching is an interesting, educational, fun, and easy activity which can help students become "special" lepidopterists. An easy butterfly watching project for students follows the lifecycle of a beautiful monarch butterfly. Butterfly watching home kits are available for purchase but students can build their own with things they can find around the house.


A large, clean, clear jar will make butterfly watching easy to do without causing any disturbance to the delicate creature inside. To ensure a safe environment or home for the butterfly, the metal lid should have several holes in it to provide plenty of air. This can be done by pounding nails into the lid with a hammer.


Once you have the jar ready for your butterfly watching project, all you need is a monarch caterpillar. Again, you can purchase these along with the kits, or separately, but you can find your own caterpillar. The best time to look for a monarch caterpillar is around the end of July and August. The places to look for them are in fields or anywhere that milkweeds are growing.


Monarch butterflies almost always lay their eggs on milkweed leaves. When the egg hatches, the caterpillar emerges, eats the egg and begins eating on the milkweed leaf. Carefully turn over the leaves of a milkweed plant. If you find a caterpillar, pick it up gently and place it in the jar on top of some milkweed leaves. The milkweed leaves will provide food for the caterpillar. The leaves need to be replaced with fresh new ones every day.


Though a caterpillar is in the jar, butterfly watching can begin by observing the caterpillar. Soon the caterpillar changes into a chrysalis by attaching to the lid of the jar and shedding its skin. It starts out soft but soon hardens into a shell. In two weeks the shell becomes clear and you can see inside the chrysalis. The metamorphosis is complete and it is time for the butterfly to emerge and wait for its wings to dry and harden.


Butterfly watching is fun to do while the butterfly is in the jar, but that is not the natural habitat of the butterfly. It is thankful for the safe and quiet place it has had while your student has been butterfly watching, but it needs to be released. The lid of the jar can be removed and allow the butterfly to climb out onto your finger so that you can release it into the air, or just set the jar out with the lid removed and it will fly out on its own.


Students often want to repeat the experience and wonderment of butterfly watching each year. Some students may become interested in butterfly watching for the rest of their lives as a hobby or as lepidopterists; or they might volunteer to rescue butterflies that are in danger during migration. Students could work together to build butterfly gardens and go on butterfly watching field trips.


When monarch butterflies migrate to the south for winter, butterfly watching enthusiasts in the area are witness to groups of thousands of butterflies flying in groups and clinging to trees. A student butterfly watching project with only one butterfly is just as amazing and is an easy project that can be repeated and enjoyed each year.


Butterfly Watching For Kids


Butterfly watching is an interesting, educational, fun, and easy activity which can help students become "special" lepidopterists. A lepidopterist studies butterflies. An easy butterfly watching project for students follows the lifecycle of a beautiful monarch butterfly. Butterfly watching home kits are available for purchase but students can build their own with things they can find around the house.


Butterfly watching field trips are offered in some areas, especially in the south. When monarch butterflies migrate to the south for winter, butterfly watching enthusiasts in the area are witness to groups of thousands of butterflies flying in groups and clinging to trees. A student butterfly watching project with only one butterfly is just as amazing and is an easy project that can be repeated and enjoyed each year.


Butterfly Watching Facts for Beginners


Butterflying or butterfly watching has not been as popular in the past as bird watching but it has recently been becoming more popular. As more and more natural butterfly habitats are being destroyed, the awareness for the need to protect and conserve butterflies and their natural habitat seems to be the reason for an increase the interest in butterfly watching.


You might be surprised to know that, according to scientists' estimates, there are over 20,000 butterfly species in the world. In North America there are over 700 species of butterflies. That is a lot of butterflies available for the butterfly watching enthusiasts!


Butterfly watchers are called lepidopterists. Besides butterfly watching, they love to study the life cycle of the butterflies, catch and collect them, create and enjoy butterfly gardens, and some work hard to preserve the natural habitat of butterflies. Some adults and students become involved in doing an annual butterfly census to track the butterflies' traveling habits and their numbers in their species.


Capturing and mounting butterflies for collecting as a hobby is no longer encouraged. However, the Field Museum in Chicago has collected from all over the world over 90,000 specimens of butterflies. Besides visiting the museum, you can join groups like the North American Butterfly Association, the Lepidopterist Society and subscribe to journals like the Journal of Lepidopterists' Society.


Scores of books dedicated to butterfly watching are available in libraries and bookstores. There are butterfly watching clubs and seasonal festivals and parades devoted to butterfly watching activities.


You could spend very little for butterfly watching expenses or you could spend as much as you care to. There are butterfly nature reserves, field trips, butterfly releases, migrations watches, and general butterfly watching opportunities all over the world. Some species of butterflies thrive only where certain plants for food available to them, so it would be necessary for you to travel to observe them in their habitats.


in your backyard butterfly garden, some points of interest where you can enjoy successful butterfly watching are in Singapore, Mexico, Callaway Gardens in Pine Mountain, Georgia, Niagara Park, Ontario, Butterfly Kingdom in South Carolina, and Wings of Paradise in Cambridge, Ontario. People from all over the world visit these butterfly watching hotspots. They provide butterfly watching enthusiasts a view of many species of butterflies and rare plants.


Some suggestions to get you started in the hobby of butterfly watching are that, although butterfly watching can be done alone, it is recommended that you go with a buddy. Accidents do happen and if you should happen to fall and sustain injuries, the buddy system will work for you. There are differing opinions on what color clothing is recommended for butterfly watching. Some say you should wear browns and greens so that you blend in and will not scare the butterflies away. Others recommend wearing bright colors to attract the butterflies. White clothing would cause the butterflies to see you from a distance and fly away. You might want to bring along binoculars and a notebook to record what you found while you were butterfly watching. You might want to keep a record of the species you find, notes about their habitat and food plants where you found the butterflies.


If you are just beginning butterfly watching, start out by going out on bright, warm, sunny days when the butterflies are active. Look for them in backyards, wetlands, meadows, woods, where there is fruit and anywhere you see brightly colored flowers. You are sure to see those delightful "flying flowers" around somewhere during your butterfly watching adventures.


Butterfly Watching as a Hobby


Butterfly watching, as a world-wide hobby, has not been as popular in the past as bird watching but it has recently been becoming more popular. As more and more natural habitats are being destroyed, the awareness for the need to protect and conserve butterflies and their natural habitat seems to be the reason for an increase the interest in butterfly watching.


You might be surprised to know that, according to scientists' timates, there are over 20,000 butterfly species in the world. In North America there are over 700 species of butterflies. That is a lot of butterflies available for the butterfly watching enthusiasts!


Butterfly watchers are called lepidopterists. Another name for butterfly watching is 'butterflying'. Besides butterfly watching, they love to study the life cycle of the butterflies, catch and collect them, create and enjoy butterfly gardens, and some work hard to preserve the natural habitat of butterflies. Some adults and students become involved in doing an annual butterfly census to track the butterflies' traveling habits and their numbers in their species.


Capturing and mounting butterflies for collecting as a hobby is no longer encouraged. However, the Field Museum in Chicago has collected from all over the world over 90,000 specimens of butterflies. Besides visiting the museum, you can join groups like the North American Butterfly Association, the Lepidopterist Society and subscribe to journals like the Journal of Lepidopterists' Society.


Scores of books dedicated to butterfly watching are available in libraries and bookstores. There are butterfly watching clubs and seasonal festivals and parades devoted to butterfly watching activities.


You could spend very little for butterfly watching expenses or you could spend as much as you care to. There are butterfly nature reserves, field trips, butterfly releases, migrations watches, and general butterfly watching opportunities all over the world. Some species of butterflies thrive only where certain plants for food available to them, so it would be necessary for you to travel to observe them in their habitats.


Besides in your backyard butterfly garden, some points of interest where you can enjoy successful butterfly watching are Callaway Gardens in Pine Mountain, Georgia, Niagara Park, Ontario, Butterfly Kingdom in South Carolina, and Wings of Paradise in Cambridge, Ontario. People from all over the world visit these butterfly watching hotspots. They provide butterfly watching enthusiasts a view of many species of butterflies and rare plants.


There are some suggestions to get you started in the hobby of butterfly watching. Though butterfly watching can be done alone, it is recommended that you go with a buddy. Accidents do happen and if you should happen to fall and sustain injuries, the buddy system will work for you. There are differing opinions on what color clothing is recommended for butterfly watching. Some say you should wear browns and greens so that you blend in and will not scare the butterflies away. Others recommend wearing bright colors to attract the butterflies. White clothing would cause the butterflies to see you from a distance and fly away. You might want to bring along binoculars and a notebook to record what you found while you were butterfly watching. You might want to keep a record of the species you find, notes about their habitat and food plants available


where you found the butterflies.


If you are just beginning butterfly watching, start out by going out on bright, warm, sunny days when the butterflies are active. Look for them in backyards, wetlands, meadows, woods, where there is fruit and anywhere you see brightly colored flowers. You are sure to see those delightful "flying flowers" around somewhere.


Butterfly Watch Project - Observing a Butterfly's Life Cycle


Butterfly watching is an interesting, educational, fun, and easy activity which can help students become "special" lepidopterists. A lepidopterist studies butterflies. An easy butterfly watching project for students follows the lifecycle of a beautiful monarch butterfly. Butterfly watching home kits are available for purchase but students can build their own with things they can find around the house.


A large, clean, clear jar will make butterfly watching easy to do without causing any disturbance to the delicate creature inside. To ensure a safe environment or home for the butterfly, the metal lid should have several holes in it to provide plenty of air. This can be done by pounding nails into the lid with a hammer.


Once you have the jar ready for your butterfly watching project, all you need is a monarch caterpillar. Again, you can purchase these along with the kits, or separately, but you can find your own caterpillar. The best time to look for a monarch caterpillar is around the end of July and August. The places to look for them are in fields or anywhere that milkweeds are growing.


Monarch butterflies almost always lay their eggs on milkweed leaves. When the egg hatches, the caterpillar emerges, eats the egg and begins eating on the milkweed leaf. Carefully turn over the leaves of a milkweed plant. If you find a caterpillar, pick it up gently and place it in the jar on top of some milkweed leaves. The milkweed leaves will provide food for the caterpillar. The leaves need to be replaced with fresh new ones every day.


Though a caterpillar is in the jar, butterfly watching can begin by observing the caterpillar. Soon the caterpillar changes into a chrysalis by attaching to the lid of the jar and shedding its skin. It starts out soft but soon hardens into a shell. In two weeks the shell becomes clear and you can see inside the chrysalis. The metamorphosis is complete and it is time for the butterfly to emerge and wait for its wings to dry and harden.

Butterfly watching is fun to do while the butterfly is in the jar, but that is not the natural habitat of the butterfly. It is thankful for the safe and quiet place it has had while your student has been butterfly watching, but it needs to be released. The lid of the jar can be removed and allow the butterfly to climb out onto your finger so that you can release it into the air, or just set the jar out with the lid removed and it will fly out on its own.

Students often want to repeat the experience and wonderment of butterfly watching each year. Some students may become interested in butterfly watching for the rest of their lives as a hobby or as lepidopterists; or they might volunteer to rescue butterflies that are in danger during migration. Students could work together to create butterfly gardens. Inexpensive seed mixture packets containing seeds of flowers that attract butterflies can be purchased where other gardening items are sold.


Butterfly watching field trips are offered in some areas, especially in the south. When monarch butterflies migrate to the south for winter, butterfly watching enthusiasts in the area are witness to groups of thousands of butterflies flying in groups and clinging to trees. A student butterfly watching project with only one butterfly is just as amazing and is an easy project that can be repeated and enjoyed each year.


How to Make a Butterfly House for Butterfly Watching


Butterfly watching is an interesting, educational, fun, and easy activity for children. While doing this project, children can be "special" lepidopterists. A lepidopterist studies butterflies. An easy butterfly watching project for students follows the lifecycle of a beautiful monarch butterfly. Butterfly watching home kits are available for purchase but students can build their own with things they can find around the house.


A large, clean, clear jar will make butterfly watching easy to do without causing any disturbance to the delicate creature inside. To ensure a safe environment or home for the butterfly, the metal lid should have several holes in it to provide plenty of air. This can be done by pounding nails into the lid with a hammer.


Once you have the jar ready for your butterfly watching project, all you need is a monarch caterpillar. Again, you can purchase these along with the kits, or separately, but you can find your own caterpillar. The best time to look for a monarch caterpillar is around the end of July and August. The places to look for them are in fields or anywhere that milkweeds are growing.


Monarch butterflies almost always lay their eggs on milkweed leaves. When the egg hatches, the caterpillar emerges, eats the egg and begins eating on the milkweed leaf. Carefully turn over the leaves of a milkweed plant. If you find a caterpillar, pick it up gently and place it in the jar on top of some milkweed leaves. The milkweed leaves will provide food for the caterpillar. The leaves need to be replaced with fresh new ones every day.


Though a caterpillar is in the jar, butterfly watching can begin by observing the caterpillar. Soon the caterpillar changes into a chrysalis by attaching to the lid of the jar and shedding its skin. It starts out soft but soon hardens into a shell. In two weeks the shell becomes clear and you can see inside the chrysalis. The metamorphosis is complete and it is time for the butterfly to emerge and wait for its wings to dry and harden.

Butterfly watching is fun to do while the butterfly is in the jar, but that is not the natural habitat of the butterfly. It is thankful for the safe and quiet place it has had while your student has been butterfly watching, but it needs to be released. The lid of the jar can be removed and allow the butterfly to climb out onto your finger so that you can release it into the air, or just set the jar out with the lid removed and it will fly out on its own.


Students often want to repeat the experience and wonderment of butterfly watching each year. Some students may become interested in butterfly watching for the rest of their lives as a hobby or as lepidopterists; or they might volunteer to rescue butterflies that are in danger during migration. Students could work together to create butterfly gardens. Inexpensive seed mixture packets containing seeds of flowers that attract butterflies can be purchased where other gardening items are sold.


Butterfly watching field trips are offered in some areas, especially in the south. When monarch butterflies migrate to the south for winter, butterfly watching enthusiasts in the area are witness to groups of thousands of butterflies flying in groups and clinging to trees. A children's butterfly watching project with only one butterfly is just as amazing and is an easy project that can be repeated and enjoyed each year.


Butterfly Watching - Attracting Butterflies to Your Backyard


Creating a backyard garden that will attract butterflies for the best butterfly watching experience is fun for students and adults alike. Anyone can enjoy butterfly watching when the beautiful butterflies are attracted to your backyard. Some will hover over the plants for a while and fly away. Others will land on several different flowers and dip their heads into the blossoms to gather nectar. There are things you can do to attract these "flying flowers" to your garden.


For backyard butterfly watching you need to get the butterflies' attention with flowers that are colorful and full of nectar. Group three of the same type of colorful flowers closely together. You can find seed packets with a mixture of seeds with carefully selected plants which attract butterflies. Butterflies' favorite plants can also be purchased at a garden center and then transplanted in a sunny spot in your garden.


The best plants are perennial butterfly plants. They will come up annually so that you don't have to plant them every year, leaving more time for butterfly watching instead of digging. The perennials and the butterflies will come back year after year, adding to the pleasures of butterfly watching.


There are things you can do to your garden to optimize your butterfly watching experience. You can lure butterflies to your garden by putting some rotting fruit out in the sun next to the flower garden. When you are butterfly watching out in your garden, you will soon see that bananas or other overly-ripened fruit and a little honey or sugar mashed together is an attractive treat for butterflies.


Butterflies, like any other living creature, need water. Place a shallow dish filled with water on the ground near your garden. Puddling, according to butterfly watching enthusiasts, is when butterflies sip water from wet spots on the ground. Place a few stones in the water, and enjoy butterfly watching as the butterflies sit on the stones and drink water.


There are several things you will learn from butterfly watching. For instance, if you see a butterfly moving from plant to plant, but she isn't eating, she may be looking for a perfect spot to place her eggs. The plant has to be one that will sufficiently feed the caterpillars when they hatch from the eggs.


Milk weeds are a favorite plant for monarch butterflies to lay eggs on. For optimum monarch butterfly watching, go to fields where there are milk weeds growing. In your own garden, plant other butterflies' favorite plants to attract them to your garden such as hollyhock, columbine, lupine, cleome, turtlehead, false indigo, white sweet clover, pink clover and thistle.


Some butterflies prefer to lay their eggs on the leaves of vegetables like cabbage and carrots that you can grow in your garden, so you might want to plant some in a corner of your butterfly garden. You could also grow long grasses and weedy plants in a special corner to attract more butterflies for butterfly watching.


Part of your butterfly watching routine can include checking the leaves of the plants to see if the butterflies have left their tiny eggs on the underneath side of the leaves. You can observe as the caterpillars hatch from the eggs. As the caterpillar grows, it will shed its skin and develop a hard shell where it will stay a few weeks and then emerge as a butterfly.


Butterfly watching is always amazing and can be repeated every year at little to no expense. What fun to spend a bright summer day in your backyard butterfly watching!


The Life-cycle of a Butterfly


The life-cycle of a butterfly (and moth for that matter) is a remarkable series of changes between seemingly very different forms culminating in the emergence of a butterfly. Throughout nature there are fantastic and fascinating occurrences of many kinds. The metamorphosis of an egg to a butterfly is just one of those wonders.


The following series of pages outlines the process from start to finish. There is also a one page short version available featuring the Zebra, Heliconius charitonius.


The story starts with a pair of butterflies mating. This enables the females eggs to be fertilised. Like many other species in nature there is often a courtship routine preceding the actual mating. Some butterflies fly in spirals, sometimes the female lies with her wings in a certain position.


The purpose of any courtship routine (humans included!) is to discover the suitability of the potential mate. Part of this process is to discover if the female is already fertilised (pregnant might be a human parallel), the female can release a pheromone (chemical) which will show her unavailability, or just not follow the usual mating routine.


Once mated a process occurs which results in the fertilisation of the females eggs. Then she is ready to lay eggs.


This is a new section dedicated to the earlier stages of a Butterflies life. It is an ambitious project to try to add details and images of the early stages of Butterflies that are described elsewhere in the guide. As it is winter there is no way I can begin taking photographs so for now we start with a generic sequence of a Butterflies life. The Butterfly featured is the Zebra, Heliconius charitonius, a resident I believe of the southern USA.


The stages described below are similar for most Butterflies and represent one of the most remarkable changes, metamorphosis, in the natural world.