Butterflies, pouring past...

June 22, 2010

We drove from Bangalore to Chennai, and from the outskirts of Hosur, till we crossed Vellore, we had so many butterflies…yellows, tigers, and others (we were driving too fast for me to id them properly) … for more than four hours, I watched them flying across the road. We were heading west to east, so the direction of the migration was south to north,I guess. Here’s a short video I took when the car had halted:

I don’t know if the video really conveys the constant stream of butterflies….but it was just amazing to see. They flitted across, as we drove through them.

Where do these tiny creatures get the energy to fly in the heat of the afternoon? How many of them make it to whatever their destination is? I did see several lying on the road, and some hit our windshield, too, which was less than delightful…..I must google up the information regarding this journey of these beautiful creatures of the light and air…but meanwhile, I wanted to share my sense of wonder….

Here’s another short video, shot from the moving car:

Every one of those “dark spots” is a butterfly…. and though the clouds of these beauties were never dense, the sheer continuity of four hours of butterflies pouring across the road, in such sustained profusion, was a source of great wonder to me!