Butterflies of Lahore - Indian Fritillary

Indian Fritillary Argyreus hyperbius is a not a common butterfly of Punjab. It is originally a butterfly of cool climate and northern areas, migrate to southern plains in winter.

I captured this butterfly in Spring in Lawrence gardens lahore, it was on a Helichrysum paper flower

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Butterflies of lahore - Pioneer white butterfly

This post is another one in the series of "Butterflies of Lahore". You can see previous posts on butterflies in the menu of this website.
Pioneer white butterfly(Belenois aurota) is also a common butterfly of lahore. It is mostly seen in lahore in winter and spring. You can see it often in the Chyrsanthemum flower show flowers.
It is often found on flowers instead of foliage or in open sun. Most of the times it is in gardens but i have seen it on my terrace as well. Like all butterflies it is always found in full sun. All these pictures of pioneer white butterfly are from Lawrence gardens lahore



Because it is a common butterfly in lahore, i guess it is also found in other parts of Pakistan. Probably it migrates from higher mountains to lower plains in winter.

Apart from "Butterflies of lahore", there will be a post on "Butterflies of Murree hills" soon.

Butterflies of lahore - Common lime butterfly

This is another articles in the series of "butterflies of lahore". This one is one of the most common butterflies of lahore. And as it is a rather slow moving butterfly, very easy to capture. Technical name is Papilio demoleus. It is a swallowtail butterfly but without a tail!!!!! This was the first butterfly i captured when my interest developed in butterflies.



It is widely spread in Asia. The common name is based on its presence on citrus family plants. A butterfly you can never miss. The back view with its spread wings is difficult to capture. Found in lahore almost whole year except winter. Found in urban population as well.

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Butterflies of Lahore - Denaid Eggfly Butterfly

This is second post in the series of "Butterflies of Lahore" I am covering. Denaid Eggfly Butterfly with technical name Hypolimnas misippus is not a very common butterfly but not rare either. It is mostly found in gardens and you will not frequently see it in the streets. It is present in lahore almost whole summer. Here is the back view of the butterfly.

It is mostly found on ground covers in my experience but i also captured it many times on mums. Very fast mover and not easy to capture but once it stays, it stays for a while and this is the time to capture its beauty. And the side view is much different and more beautiful as well.


These shots were taken in Lawrence gardens lahore in summer of 2011. I could not find this butterfly in any other garden. The side view does imitate plain tiger butterfly though.

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.

Small cabbage white butterfly - Pieris rapae

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Butterflies mating on my terrace garden

I found these butterflies mating in the leaves of my wisteria vine on my terrace. They remained there for almost whole day.






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White cabbage Butterfly

Welcome to another edition of macro monday.. It is difficult to attract butteflies if you are growing plants in containers. But planting the right plants at right places is the key. It appears to be a trifle task to capture a butterfly but it is not. This is probably some white cabbage butterfly. Still trying to confirm the identification. Sipping nector from my murraya plant on terrace.

Sometimes it takes hours capturing a butterfly. And the viewers are oblivious of the effort it is spent on the shot. Sometimes continuous shots are taken if butterfly is moving fast. Shutter speed matters a lot in this case. This one is another common butterfly of lahore. Just before rain she took shelter in the leaves.

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White Angled-Sulphur and tropical water lily

Here are some of the shots i managed to capture for this monday.
This one seems to be White Angled-Sulphur (Anteos clorinde). A sulphur butterfly for sure. They are almost everywhere in lahore these days. A bit fast though.


This is my tropical blue waterlily. It is blooming continuously from june and will go till november when it will become dormant. Will survive winters though.


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Tuberose (polianthus tubersoa)

Finally monsoon hit and rains started. Compared to last year when it was almost drought this year it has been raining good, in fact very good.So those plants which were waiting for high humidity to send blooms started to wake up. For this monday here are these two beauties.
This butterfly treated my soil bed as her guest house probably and sent whole night clinging to this jasmine leaves. I captured her at night with auto flash and macro. She seemed drunk to me as the flash and macro both did not make her embarrassed at all. In fact, i was almost thinking she is here for the photo shoot. This photo is also included in the Gardening gone wild Picture this photo contest

The second photo for this Monday is the tube rose flowers. I almost forgot murraya and my arabian jasmine when these started to flower. I planted around 50 bulbs in pots and this is the first one to flower. Would surely post separate on these warm climate flowering bulbs continuing the series.

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Macro Monday - Zinnia magic

It was difficult to get shots for this macro monday due to intense heat here. However i managed to get a few shots. Until the weather cools down a bit when monsoon starts, plants will be in stress specially the ones on my terrace. Please do visit other blogs for more macro monday shots. Here is the link to Lisa's beautiful chaos http://lisaschaos.com/


Not sure which butterfly it is but it was intense heat out there. Very fast moving butterfly though.

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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