Thanks Colonel ! We did try with cowdung , crabs , prawns , cashew fenny , beer and fruits. We have installed such feeding trays all over the conservatory , but these get devoured by ants and birds before the butterflies can come in. Baron and Grey Count do however share their peg of the spirits , but we yearn to see a flock of assorted butterflies coming in for the party.
We have a 30 metre stream which we are now revamping . We shall try the multiple substrates . Common salt didn't attract any. So didn't the river sand . Funnily while we had put some cemet out for waterproofing rain water tank we got some sunbeams mud puddling ! ________________________________ From: Ashwin Baindur <[email protected]> To: Yashodan Heblekar <[email protected]> Cc: butterflyindia <[email protected]> Sent: Sun, March 7, 2010 3:28:12 PM Subject: Re: [ButterflyIndia] Designing a muddle puddle Hi Yashodhan, Take your time to understand the phenomenon. You may like to read this wikipedia article to begin with : http://en.wikipedia .org/wiki/ Mud_puddling Perhaps you could provide the stream with different substrates along different streches? Say clay at one place, sand at another, if you can it would be nice to have many spots where you could experiment for different mixes. I'm sure you have thought about have dung-spots, rotting-fruit spots etc. I'm attaching some scientific papers by Beck et al, Boggs & Jackson which will begin to tickle your mind. Warm regards, Ashwin Baindur ------------ --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- ------ Col Ashwin Baindur OIC Corps Archive & Museum, CME, Dapodi Pune 411031 ------------ --------- --------- --------- ---- Tel : 020-27147976 (R), Mob : 09923454462 Email: ashwin.baindur( at)gmail. com, ashwin_baindur( at)yahoo. com ------------ --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- ------One does not often associate James Michener with nature-writing. Yet it is difficult to find one of his epics which has not been embellished by a tale about the land, its formation, the animals, the plants and the people who live amongst them.... Read "Epic splendour- The nature writing of James Michener. " in... Blog: http://thebutterfly diaries.wordpres s.com/2010/ 02/13/epic- splendour/ "The Butterfly Diaries" The natural travails of an Army Officer in Hindostan! ------------ --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- -------- ________________________________ From: Yashodan Heblekar <yashodan.heblekar@ yahoo.com> To: Admin <butterflyindia@ yahoogroups. com> Sent: Sat, 6 March, 2010 12:57:40 Subject: [ButterflyIndia] Designing a muddle puddle We are in midst of designing a year round mud puddle for butterfly . It will be fed by our very own artificial stream - water will be allowed to slowly seep in. Wanted helpful suggestions on the design and constitution. For e.g. whether sand is better or clay or just about any soil. What salts to be added , etc Regards Yashodan -- Enjoy
