Searching for moths
Vinod and I always run behind butterflies but regarding moths whenever we see one, we immediately take a photograph of it. We had seen Lunar moth, Owl moth, Monkey moth and many other colorful moths during our travel to Parambikulam, KMTR and many other interesting forest areas. In our recent trip to North east India, at night Vinod always wakes up few times to check for moths on the walls and we really did see huge number of moths. Although we had seen very interesting moths during our travels, never did we take any extra efforts to see the moths. Like we didn’t set up any moth screens or kept any rotten fruits to attract the moths.
Our recent acquaintance with the moth expert Mr.S.Thalavaipandi, we got opportunity to explore more on the moths. We did the moth screen for the first time in Vallanadu Blackbuck Sanctuary. We hung the screen only near the forest quarters , so there was light pollution. The result was hence not very extravagant but just some micro moths and few other moths.
During the National moth week , we tried moth screen in our home and sadly with the giant lizards on the walls, no moths came to our moth screen. We got a chance to visit Kalikesam eco camp for Moth watching. There also the results were dull. Our next moth watching experience was in Sirumalai. Along with Mr.Thalavaipandi Mr.Thanigaivel and Mr.Rameshwaran we set off to Sirumalai. Thalavaipandi had arranged for a small genset , so that we can setup moth screen anywhere in the forest.
SETTING UP A MOTH SCREEN
The day we arrived at Sirumalai, we went for a short walk and saw few moths on leaves. It started drizzling in the evening and we set off to the forest in a vehicle carrying our dinner, other moth screening stuffs. The forest floor was infested with leeches and with rain, moth screen was done with some difficulty. Within few seconds, moths started coming to the screen. The screen was setup on a slope, so we couldn’t watch the moths comfortably. Thalavaipandi and Vinod were clicking all the moths that were sitting on the screen.
I was suffering from a severe headache, so I was just sitting in the corner of the van and watching the scene infront of me. After an hour, the moth activity had increased and I climbed up the slope to see them closely. Those intrinsic patterns in each species is mindboggling. Once we decided to call it a night, the lights were switched off and the moths started sitting on our head and hand especially those monkey moths. It was really a wonderful experience.
Vinod and Thalavaipandi were checking for moths near our camp during early morning hours too. They did see few other moths in the campsite. Thalavaipandi, Vinod and myself went on a reki the second day to find a perfect spot for putting moth screen and no leeches ! It stopped raining the second day, so we were hoping for more moths on the second day. We found an ideal spot near a waterfalls.
With the previous day experience, we landed with our gears earlier to the spot and setup the place at twilight. Thousands of bats were flying above us and we all enjoyed the moth screen setup with the genset amidst the forest area as this part has no leeches. Thanigaivel walked around and found a small bamboo pit viper.
NIGHT EXPLORATION
Once the darkness filled the evening, slowly moths started coming. Soon we didn’t know what we clicked and what we did not. After seeing lots of moths, we decided to take a break and walked to the falls. That was the second time I was watching a waterfalls at night. The first time was in the Jog falls , Karnataka but that was a huge waterfall and a tourist spot. The current one is a small waterfall but not a tourist place. So it was totally a new experience for me and I really enjoyed watching the waterfalls at night.
We saw a centipede who came out for a stroll. We were looking out for owls but couldn’t hear any calls.
By the time we returned back, we saw so many hawk moths like Marumba dyras, Marumba nympha have come to the screen. Few of the other attractive moths we had seen were Comostola laesaria, Idea species, Ourapteryx marginata, Pingasa ruginaria, Yepcalphis dilectissima and so on.
We did moth watching till the fuel in the genset ran out, only then we called it a night. After we packed up the gears, Thalavaipandi noticed a moth on a grass. That green moth, Agathia species was one of the beautiful moths we had ever seen.
We saw few more colorful moths near the camping site. Vinod and myself were dreaming for an Atlas Moth. Anyway we didn’t complain as we had seen 200 + moths in two nights. This is one of the best wildlife trips we had done with the best like-minded team!