Chocolate Pansy

Chocolate Pansy

I found this Chocolate Pansy Butterfly on a dried coconut palm leaf stack in our backyard. That evening I was trying to photograph using my Canon EOS 5D Mark III with Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM with Canon EF 2X II Extender. I wanted to find out how versatile this combination is with … Read more

Male Great Eggfly

Male Great Eggfly

It was end of Jack fruit (Artocarpus heterophyllus) season. Monsoon was about to start. Lot of ripe Jack fruit grown in our garden was getting wasted. So we thought of drying them in sunlight and create a sun-dried Jack fruit which can be preserved and eaten later during rainy season. First day of drying went … Read more

Plain Tiger

Plain Tiger Butterfly (Danais chrysippus)

On that Sunday afternoon, weather was very hot and sultry. Pre-monsoon clouds were gathering on the horizon. The place I was trying to photograph was windy and deserted. I was lugging my heavy rig consisting of Canon EF 300mm f/2.8L IS USM + Canon EF 2X II Extender mounted on my Canon EOS 5D Mark … Read more

Commander Caterpillar

Sahyadri Commander (Moduza procris) Caterpillar

I saw this strange & bizarre looking caterpillar on the leaves of Mussaenda frondosa in my garden. The caterpillar was dirty brown with a chestnut tinge and dark reddish brown splotches all over. The body also bore numerous processes which helped it to break up its outline. Just like Hans Christian Andersen’s classic The Ugly … Read more

Tailed Palmfly

Around 1:30 AM after a really late night call at my hospital I was returning back home for a well deserved sleep, I saw this butterfly sitting on a dry vine near corridor of my house. I could make out that it was a butterfly from the way it was sitting with wings folded. Dim … Read more

Mating Trouble

After photographing Female Plain Tiger, I was in the hunt for the Male Plain Tiger. As the Plain Tiger is known to be parasitized at least occasionally by Spiroplasma bacteria which selectively kill off male hosts, a subsequent scarcity of Plain Tiger males might have led to this hybridization and the evolution of the new … Read more