Tyger Tyger

Tyger Tyger | Setidevi Community Forest, Mangalpur, Chitwan | September 2012

Tyger Tyger burning bright,
In the forests of the night:
What immortal hand or eye,
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

The Tyger

BY WILLIAM BLAKE

"...self propelled flowers." - R.H. Heinlein

Junonia almana, the peacock pansy | Chitwan, September 2012

In 2012 we* were helping two adjoining contiguous community forests - Setidevi and Gyaneshwor Community Forest in Mangalpur, Chitwan to prepare a check-list of mammals, birds and butterflies. Our aim was to help them conserve their biodiversity and promote eco-tourism. We recorded mammals using camera-traps, transects, sign surveys, and live sightings; birds with the help of expert birders; and the elusive dancing butterflies were captured on photographs and identified.

I took this photo during one of my many excursions. I was originally thinking about adding a pinch of scientific facts to accompany this beautiful frolicking peacock pansy  but alas, akin to the fellow in the photograph I too couldn't resist wandering around the realm of the internet. Somehow I ended up in butterfly quotes section.... Here are some I really loved.

"Just living is not enough," said the butterfly, "one must have sunshine, freedom and a little flower."

 - Hans Christian Andersen

I've watched you now a full half-hour;

Self-poised upon that yellow flower

And, little Butterfly!  Indeed

I know not if you sleep or feed.

How motionless! - not frozen seas

More motionless! and then

What joy awaits you, when the breeze

Hath found you out among the trees,

And calls you forth again! 

 - William Wordsworth, "To a Butterfly"

And what's a butterfly? At best,
He's but a caterpillar, at rest.

- John Grey

We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.  

- Author Unknown

Moss covered paths between scarlet peonies,

Pale jade mountains fill your rustic windows.

I envy you, drunk with flowers,

Butterflies swirling in your dreams.

- Ch'ien Ch'i, translated by Kenneth Rexroth

The butterfly is a flying flower,

The flower a tethered butterfly.

- Ponce Denis Écouchard Lebrun

The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough.

- Rabindranath Tagore

The butterfly long loved the beautiful rose,

And flirted around all day;

While round him in turn with her golden caress,

Soft fluttered the sun's warm ray....

I know not with whom the rose was in love,

But I know that I loved them all.

The butterfly, rose, and the sun's bright ray,

The star and the bird's sweet call.

  - Heinrich Heine, "A New Spring," 1826, translated from German by Charles Godfrey Leland

* The mammal, bird and butterfly check-list survey was a voluntary initiative of Friends of Nature (FON Nepal)

..to give a hoot

A boy from Barpak | Barpak village, Gorkha, January 2015

On January we went to Barpak village of Gorkha district to discuss the possibility of organising an owl festival. We had a public meeting with the village representatives to present our proposal. They loved the idea! After forming a local festival organising committee we discussed festival activities and selected a venue. We had opted out of staying in hotels in favour of homestay and spent our free time sightseeing, enjoying the fascinating Ghale and Gurung culture and the picturesque landscape of this hilly village backdropped by the Boudha himal and Lakpa Dorje mountain range. Three days later we went back to Kathmandu.

We returned on March. The Nepal Owl Festival 2015 was a huge success.

Nepal Owl Festival is organised every year during the first week of March to promote owl awareness and conservation by Friends of Nature (FON Nepal), a non-governmental organisation working for wildlife conservation in Nepal with support from external agencies.