Butterflies of Lahore - Plain tiger butterfly

Starting from this post, i am initiating a series of posts on butterflies of my city Lahore. There is already a post on butterflies of Islamabad here. I have few butterfly posts on butterflies of himalayas as well but right now i am starting with those of my own city lahore. All the shots are taken by me. The first one is Plain tiger butterfly Danaus chrysippus.


Plain tiger is probably the most common butterfly in urban cities like lahore. And it is also one of the easiest to capture because it is a slow mover. Not very fast so camera captures easily. You will find this one on roads, in gardens, everywhere. It is not fond of a specific plant, you will find it mostly on foliage. Here is the side shot of this butterfly. Remember there is not much of difference between the male and the female at least not to naked eye.


This butterfly is common in India, Pakistan and many other countries. One habit of this butterfly is that it spreads its wing so that full sun is at the back absorbing the heat of sun through its fully open wings and that is the time to capture it closely.


The next butterfly post would be on Common lime butterfly, another common butterfly of Lahore - Pakistan. This post is included in Macro Monday by Lisa's Chaos. So visit her blog for more macro shots.

Annual Chrysanthemum show 2010

This year's Autumn Chrysanthemum flower show was held in Race Course Park Lahore. The show was not as vibrant as the last year. Few stalls, less space and not much activity was there. For last year's Chrysanthemum show click here













Visit Flowers from today for other flowers around the world
For Lisa'a macro monday visit Lisa's Chaos
For Mosaic monday visit Little Red House

Sweet almond verbena, gram blue butterfly and skipper butterfly

Welcome to another edition of garden bloggers bloom day. This is a monthly event hosted by Carol at May Dream Gardens. Visit her website for some intriguing flowers blooming all around the gardens.
This is my second year growing sweet almond verbena, botanic name aloysia virgata. This year i pruned it hard in the last december and the results showed in form of more blooms. I deadheaded every bloom and it kept blooming and blooming.
Every butterfly of the area and every bee visited these blooms having strong almond fragrance.

The first one is plain tiger butterfly with common name african monarch and biological name danaus chrysippus. A very common butterfly from asia and africa found abundant in lahore pakistan.


This is Small branded Swift Skipper with biological name Pelopidas mathias. No other insect is so fond of sweet almond verbena but this skipper butterfly. There were more than 15 beauties luring over the blooms at one time.


Another bee but i am not sure which one it is. She is the one which stays still in air for a long time.


This is gram blue butterfly with biological name (Euchrysops cnejus).She is mostly after pea related flowers but this time she could not resist the fragrance and nectar of these sweet blooms.


Another common bee of our area. She loves murraya and any sweet smelling plant. She is the last one to leave the flowers of this sweet almond bush.


And last but not least, this sweet smelling flowers are no other than cestrum diurnum also known as Din ka raja. Unlike its cousin cestrum nocturnum it releases its scent in daytime.


And this post is also included in the Blooming Friday hosted by Katarina at Roses
and Stuff. Do visit her blog for some enchanting blooms.

For Fertilizer Friday visit Tootsie Time

Trumpet honeysuckle and butterfiles in Lawrence garden

Here i am again with another edition of macro monday. Yes more butterflies in this post. I would post seperate on butterflies of lahore. And not just butterflies, capturing some hummingbirds wont be a bad idea though? Wild life is in full swing in urbans of lahore. Most shots are from Lawrence gardens also known as Bagh-e-Jinnah.
First is Plain tiger butterfly (Danaus chrysippus), Very common and easy to capture as its speed is not very fast. It spreads the wings easily and very beautiful indeed.

This one is Pioneer white butterfly (Belenois aurota) Very fast and difficult to capture. She does not like being photographed at all. I hardly manage to get few shots of hers. She is trying to get some nectar off trumpet honeysuckle the botanical name of which is Lonicera sempervirens.

Here is a trick to capture them easily. The small ones in pioneer butterfly group were much faster than those which were large. So i concentrated on large ones having large wings. not a bad deal at all.
This one was pretty fast as well and very small as compared to others butterflies. But capturing her back with spread wings was the challenge. I do not know her name, this is my first capture of her. She just adored alyssum flowers.
Another butterfly whose name i do not know. She was attracted to trumpet honeysuckle or Coral Honeysuckle, which is a hummingbird magnet. I also captured some hummingbirds, but the shots were not clear as i had no tele lens with my digital camera.
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For more macro monday posts, visit Lisa's Chaos