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In the realm of the butterfly


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In the realm of the butterfly

 

Published on May 22, 2004

 

 

If you?re keen on communing with wildlife, try a butterfly watch in Kang Krachan National Park where you don?t need to be an entomologist to cherish the beauty of bugs

 

They hover above wildflowers and land to drink from rain puddles as their small and flimsy wings make them shimmy up and down like professional dancers flashing magic on a disco floor. The scene is one of idyllic beauty. We sit tight, hold our breath and keep watching in silence. Finally someone speaks.

 

?If you think this is spectacular,? says Kriangkrai Suwannaphak, ?wait until you see Paris peacock.?

 

The Paris peacock, or papilio paris decorosa if you speak the Latin of entomologists, is a beautiful butterfly with dark green wings. Kriangkrai, on the other hand, is a fine-looking photographer-turned-butterfly sleuth.

 

It?s early May, and I?m spending a weekend with 20 bug enthusiasts at Kaeng Krachan National Park. Butterflies are why they drive four hours from Bangkok to one of country?s largest evergreen forests.

 

On the frontier between Thailand and Burma, Kaeng Krachan is famous for the country?s best bird watching. More than 400 species are here. Over the weekend, the birders pull on camouflage outfits, hang powerful binoculars around their necks, and play hide-and-seek with the treepie, the broadbill and other wild birds.

 

However, after the birds, the butterflies attract the most wildlife fans as they span their colourful wings to catch the light. These days, when you go to Kaeng Krachan, you?re likely to be amused by a bunch of butterfly sleuths lying on the ground holding magnifying glasses or digital cameras. They have little patience for easily frightened birds.

 

?As a newbie to a wildlife watch, you?ll find butterfly watching is a lot easier and more enjoyable than birding,? says Thammarat Sukphinij, a thirty-something environmentalist who has been hooked on the beauty of butterflies for more than 10 years. ?Unlike birds, butterflies let you get close enough to see them in more detail, and they?re everywhere, from your own backyard to the national park.?

 

Being a butterfly watcher means being an early bird. Nature doesn?t delay the show for latecomers.

 

We wake up at 5.30, rolling out of our sleeping bags and brushing our teeth. Everyone meets up at the cars at six and gets ready for the drive to Ban Krang campsite, where the butterfly watch really begins.

 

The road through the national park is nearly perfect, though your butt suffers from the potholes over the last 10 kilometres. After talking about the beauty of nature and lives spent slowly decaying in Bangkok offices and pubs, we finally reach the campsite around 7am.

 

It?s easy to understand why Kaeng Krachan is the first stop if you want to make friends with the butterflies.

 

Here, you see hundreds of them, filling the air above the sunlit patch of a salt-lick. Some are small with yellow wings, others are plain black or white.

 

Many stay on the ground and enjoy their sodium breakfast. But if you come too close, their fragile wings flash out quickly and take them away, like wind-blown leaves: gentle and beautiful.

 

?Last night we buried some urine and shrimp paste under the ground,? a genius forester says, revealing his secret on how to fool hundreds of butterflies to stick to one place. ?The butterflies love to hover over the patch of salt-lick. Now we drive them nuts with the stinking pee and shrimp paste.?

 

Thank you, forester. Now we know who to blame when we catch a funny whiff up the nose.

 

The Ban Krang campsite is a piece of flat land the size of a football field, covered with a lush carpet of grass. Right behind it, a small creek sweeps down from a hill before making a turn around the camp.

 

We stroll along the stream and poke around the bush for butterflies. Heaps of common yeoman butterflies are everywhere downstream. We also spot some orange vagrants, a dragontail and a rare spangle.

 

According to the butterfly guide book, more than 200 butterfly species are found in Kaeng Krachan, and hundreds more are on the waiting list for identification. The butterflies most often found here are Paris, common bluebottle, green dragontail, clipper and commander. If you?re lucky, you may find the rare and protected banded peacock.

 

Since butterflies have been given strange names like vagrant, wanderer, Helen, crow or Assyrian, you really want to meet the entomologist for the story behind the name.

 

?How a butterfly get its name very much depends on the mood of the discoverer,? says Sinthuyos Chandrakha, a respected butterfly watcher.

 

?A romantic entomologist might borrow names like Paris and Helen from the Greek mythology after he discovers the butterflies that are so appealing with elegant wingspans and sexy body shapes. And, somewhere in the remote forest, desperate people travelling far from home and missing their family badly discover the vagrant and the wanderer.?

 

Does anyone have an idea how the ?silver forget-me-not? butterfly get its name? Before Sinthuyos can drag us down with the story of some romantic loser, we leave the stream and head back to a dirt trail stretching out from the campsite into the evergreen forest.

 

Here it?s an easy stroll along a natural trail which zigzags up and down alongside the stream. The air, full of the fresh pleasant smell of earth, is something people in Bangkok can only dream about. And the soundtrack is orchestrated by chirping birds and buzzing bees.

 

Going on at a slow pace with no particular topic to speak of, we keep our eyes tracking the wet sandy patches for a Paris peacock or a red Helen. At midday, we encounter swarms of swordtails that are busy with lunch over the foothills. And there, standing out starkly among the dotty swordtails, is a dark green butterfly the size of an ATM card.

 

?Picture, picture, picture!? shouts someone from behind in quick response to the green butterfly. That?s Paris ? a butterfly that gets its name after the warrior prince in the Greek epic ?The Iliad?.

 

The Paris is outstanding, with its black body and striking patches of metallic green on its hind wings. Taking a closer look at it through the binoculars is like travelling into a small world of little creatures. You?re immediately hooked by the aesthetic appeal.

 

A pair of antennae with knotty tips, small black eyes, a funny little spiral nose, four flimsy wings, slender abdomen ? everything is beautifully crafted by nature. The longer you have been looking at the butterflies, the more you think of those little fairies hovering in the mythical forest.

 

The day with small creatures is passes in constant excitement. One minute you?re amused by the swordtails who keep shaking their long tails in order to confuse the silly birds, and then you?re delighted by a cute little white-banded awl spreading its technicolour wings.

 

A butterfly watch gets you closer to nature, but I have found that it can also give you deep thoughts, if not a headache, for days.

 

Good Lord! Does anyone really know how silver-forget-me-not got its name? Who is she, this silver?

 

Is she an entomologist?s fling?

 

Phoowadon Duangmee

 

The Nation

 

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Travel information

 

Kaeng Krachan National Park, Phetchburi, is about three hours by car from Bangkok. You can either pitch your camp around the reservoir or at the Ban Kang Campsite in the park.

 

For a butterfly watch, you will need a butterfly guidebook, binoculars, magnifying glass or digital camera with macro lens. Avoid dressing in bright colours. Moving slowly towards a butterfly will get you closer to it.

 

If people start giving you strange looks because of your fascination with butterfly watches, regain your self-esteem at www.savebutterfly.com.

 

Here many butterfly lovers chat together and share quick trips to watch butterflies over the weekend.

 

The Nation

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