Goa Meet 2009 : Successful

The butterfly meet was a great experience especially for me since I was associating for the first time. Saw the Malabar Banded Swallowtail, which was a lifer for me. Some salient features :

1. 33 participants confirmed and 32 attended.
2. 108 Species butterflies were sighted.
3. Weather played spoilsport on all days.
4. Moth diversity was not too encouraging (actually people interested in moths were not many).
5. Witnessed and documented the emergence of the Moon Moth (Actias selene).
6. For the first time (I was told) managed to save money (Rs. 4,100/-). This will be deposited in the fund being created for the Fellowship.
7. Though we saved, this was also the cheapest meet (Again, I was told)
8. DCF (Wildlife), ACF and the local RFO were present for the inaugural session.
9. We constituted the Rarest Catch of the Day Award, which was won by Rahul Natu (Black Prince), Amol Patwardhan (Malabar Banded Swallowtail) and Pinakin Karve (Malabar Banded Peacock & Gaudy Baron). They were gifted the Photographic Guide to Butterflies of Goa authored by yours truly.
10. Excellent presentations were made by Amol Patwardhan, Shyam Ghate, Hemant Ogale, Mihir Chhatre, Anil Cherukupalli, Yuwraj Gurjar, Manchit Deshpande, Onkar Dharwadkar, Debra Glomb and Parag Rangnekar.
11. Saw many frog species, 3 snakes and other insect forms. The sighting of the Hump-nosed Pit Viper was the highlight.

In all we had a great time. Thanks for Amol and Vijay for guiding during the planning phase.

Parag Rangnekar