A Walk Across Tiger Country In Search Of India’s National Butterfly

A Gloomy Morning

An unusually quiet dawn broke in Arunachal’s Pakke Tiger Reserve. Dark clouds cast a haze over the rainforest. A whiff of damp soil floated in the air. At the forest guards’ quarters in Pakke’s West Bank Administrative Campus, Tana Takkar brewed his morning tea. A Special Tiger Protection Force (STPF) Officer, he had learnt the intricacies of the forest over decades of patrolling. We had met the previous day, beneath a flowering Krishnachura at West Bank, to discuss butterflies.

In November 2021, when Arunachal’s Cabinet Ministers had gathered at that campus, they too had discussed butterflies, adopting Kaiser-e-Hind as Arunachal’s state butterfly. This followed the adoption of the orange oakleaf (Kallima inachus) as India’s national butterfly through a citizens’ poll in October 2020.

Picking cues from Sondhi and Kunte’s seminal research on the Lepidoptera of Pakke, published in the Journal of Threatened Taxa (2016), I had arrived two weeks into May 2024, at the onset of monsoon, hoping to meet our national butterfly in the wilderness. Tana Takkar had suggested that we explore mud-puddling congregations and detailed a 30-km round trail from West Bank via Jali Nullah-Dhuna Nullah-Lalling riverbed, and Khari Beat Office. Following torrential rain overnight, I visited him at gloomy daybreak to ask whether we should proceed with our plan. He simply slung a Lee Enfield 0.303 rifle over his shoulder and took to the West Bank-Khari forest trail. 

On the Oakleaf’s Trail

I followed Takkar, past wreathed hornbills, perched atop towering bhelus or false hemp trees, their wet wings stretched out to dry. Not a single leaf moved. Rain lingered in the forest’s placid humidity. Euploea (crow butterflies) hovered over mauve, filamentous flowers of invasive billygoat weed. We didn’t stop too long. Primarily because of the long day ahead but perhaps also because the Euploea do not fit orthodox standards for charismatic butterflies.

From flamboyant swordtails and jays to mesmerising peacocks and jezebels, there is no dearth of charisma, however, in this rainforest’s sprawling 800-sq-km expanse. The Forest Department claims 500 butterfly species, while Sondhi and Kunte mention 421 species from the greater West Kameng Protected Area complex, which includes Eaglenest and Sessa Wildlife Sancuatries alongside Pakke Tiger Reserve.

Squashed banderdima fruits stained the ground beneath our feet as we walked along a trail flanked by stout paroli trees. Startled by our presence, a barking deer (muntjac) embarked on a frantic run, trampling the forest’s silence with its loud barks. When the sun emerged, buzzing cicadas, chirping tailorbirds, and low-flying oriental pied hornbills stirred the jungle to life. Near a handsome goborkhutla, standing among butterfly trees, their stems enveloped by creeping vines, the soundscape of buzzing insects and singing barbets was punctuated by shrill cries of the elusive grey peacock pheasant. But Tana Takkar kept walking and stopped only at the pebbly streambed of Jali Nullah, where a milieu of butterflies — variegated rajahs, common mormons, chocolate tigers, common castors, and black-vein sergeants — jostled for mud-puddling space. Purple sapphire and other small Lycaenidae fluttered in their midst. Bee flies chased common yeomen off their stony salt licks. Tiger beetles scurried across the streambed. We waited for the oakleafs. They never arrived. 

Taking a right turn off the Khari-West Bank trail, we walked into a shadowy gully guarded by vigorous strangler figs and lined by slippery leaf litter. It snaked towards Duna Nullah. Blue, glassy, and chocolate tigers huddled with magpie, striped-blue, and blue-spotted crows on a concrete pillar of the Duna Nullah anti-poaching camp. Loud calls of a wreathed hornbill filled the forest behind it. But oakleafs simply weren’t around — neither at the camp nor in the forests.

Ushered into the Duna Nullah by a grunting great hornbill, we meandered along slow, dribbling streams with scurrying wagtails that kept us company. At the other end of that gravelly streambed, a muddy trail flanked by dense jungle climbed onto a slightly raised hillock. Down below, monitor lizards scurried across a fallen white teak tree (gamari) that naturally bridged a waterhole to thick bamboo groves on the other side. We heard elephants in the shadows. But the large leaves of tokko (touca palm) and geying (cane) concealed the pachyderms from view. When we climbed down from the hillock and paused for a brief meal of chocolates by a flowing stream (Lalling 2), round footprints in the soft mud confirmed their presence.

Under the scorching sun, both of us dripped with sweat. Humidity prevented anything from drying. A lesser gull butterfly sought salt from my drenched handkerchief. Oakleafs remained elusive.

Ahead of Lalling 2, a pair of greater flameback woodpeckers flew over our heads, jumped about in trees, and fluttered ahead of us without ever straying out of sight. Engrossed in their antiques, we hardly noticed when dense forest gave way to grasslands. Rolling hills revealed themselves in the distance. Through a riverbed-grassland mosaic, the Lalling stream winded towards Khari.  

Just Walking

In this open landscape devoid of shade, there was little butterfly activity. Walking through razor-edged grass and wading across shallow streams shifted our focus away from butterflies towards everything else that surrounded us. We watched the grass swaying to the wind, analysed tiger movement by scouting pugmarks on the sandy riverbed, and tasted elephant apples. When a grazing gaur, startled by our presence, stomped heavily into the grass and disappeared within seconds, we marvelled at the grassland’s incredible ability to conceal.

But after hours of walking in the heat, the indistinguishable scenery of pebbly-muddy riverbed and tall grass created an illusion of stasis. Even Tana Takkar doubted his directions for a moment. When the Khari Beat Office was finally visible in the distance, we only sought shade. At Khari, we rested awhile and watched chestnut-headed bee-eaters swoop around their muddy nests at the riverbank. When we embarked on the 12-km-hike to West Bank from Khari, greens in the forest shone like emeralds in the late afternoon sun. Songbirds whistled in the thickets.

And then, a dry, brown leaf suddenly stood out amidst the surrounding green. The veined blade sported tiny legs, round eyes and prominent antennae. It was an orange oakleaf! The butterfly, confident of its impeccable camouflage, sat still as long as it believed it hadn’t been spotted. When I got too close, it burst into erratic flight, darting side-to-side before zigzagging upwards towards the rainforest canopy. Other individuals followed suit. Every leaf in the forest had suddenly grown wings.

When our trance was broken by a noisy kalij pheasant in the rainforest’s understory, realisation dawned. It was late.  

Walking nonstop across a series of steep inclines, past crowing junglefowl and hovering hornbills, stopping just once to watch a dragonfly prey on beetles, we were back among the mud-puddling butterflies at Jali Nullah. In the last light of day, they fluttered in magical circles around us. As we plodded back to West Camp, past a troop of chattering capped langurs, the sky blazed orange. The last bits of the reddish sun disappeared behind Pakke’s hilly outline.

The Return Leg

We planned to visit Jali Nullah again the next morning, but an intense thunderstorm marred our plan. When I returned the day after, STPF officer Khanyo guided me to Jali Nullah by carving routes through tangles of fallen trees and innovating detours.

In the forest, we stumbled upon a spotted flat perched on a flower. Fluffy tits, grass yellows, elbowed pierrots, and common maps joined the other butterflies that we had seen previously at Jali Nullah. While we waited, a wreathed hornbill flew over us, a blister beetle scurried among the butterflies, bee-flies buzzed at my face, and a praying mantis lurked in a nearby bush. Later in the day, an Indian awlking butterfly paid a surprise visit.

When the rain clouds got too dark, Khanyo decided that we should leave. Back on the trail, fresh marks in the wet mud hinted that a leopard had walked towards Jali Nullah, right on our heels.