Our first trip to Fujian was in 2016 to the notorious Emeifeng mountain adjacent to Jiangxi border. We did see the specialties of Emeifeng and we also did note a good variety of butterflies but lack of reference materials during that time, plenty of those butterflies went unidentified. To make up for the trip, 2018 trip was primarily a butterfly exploration trip with some twitching on the gamebirds of the Fujian province.
Took the overnigt train from Shanghai to Nanping city. Collected the rental car from 1hai and headed straight to Ziyun village. It took a solid 3 hour drive and during a section of the mountain road, there was road repair work was going and it was really a treacherous drive. Roger, who arrived a day later came in a pickup truck, caught in a thunderstorm and said he never though he would make it to the place. So, except the bumpy section of the road, the forest was mature and gave pretty good butterflies.
This is the first ever , i had a good run with the swallowtails (Papilionidae), that’s probably because this part of the Fujian province (Mingxi county) has a good continuous mature forest.
The Junfeng temple at Ziyun village is not a 3A/5A rated tourist spot in Fujian province but is famous for the Elliot’s Pheasant and Cabot’s Tragopan. Although, we din’t have a prolonged views of the birds but did saw fleeting views of male Tragopan crossing the road, a female Elliot’s Pheasant with 6 fledgelings and 6 male Silver Pheasant made most of the day. Despite hard birding, butterflies were easy to find.
I also had my first encounter with Awls, there are so many of them at the entrance of the JunFeng temple. The illustrations in the handbook are misleading as i was in the assumption that the Awls are tiny skipper but infact they are huge and they fly like they had a dozen Red bulls.
We only had half day in Dangzhou village but the place stole our heart, the nature is untouched by any sort of commercialization and we did see a whole variety of fauna, it’s a shame we din’t get to spend much time there but it always gives a chance to go back and explore more.
Species List :
Hesperiidae
- Burara miracula
- Choaspes benjamini (Indian Awlking)
- Tagiades litigiosa (Water snow flat)
- Halpe concavimarginata
- Potanthus yani
- Polytremis pellucida
Papilionidae
- Papilio paris (Paris Peacock)
- Papilio maackii (Alpine black swallowtail)
- Papilio nephelus (Yellow Helen)
- Papilio polytes (Common Mormen)
- Papilio protenor (Spangle)
- Graphium Agamemnon (Tailed Jay)
Pieridae
- Pieris rapae (Small White)
- Pieris canidia (Indian Cabbage White)
Lycaenidae
- Taraka hamada (Forest Pierrot)
- Curetis acuta (Angled Sunbeam)
- Yamamotozephyrus kwangtungensis
- Spindasis lohita (Long-banded Silverline)
- Acytolepsis puspa (Common hedge blue)
- Abisara fylla (Dark Judy)
- Abisara neophron(Tailed Judy)
Nymphalidae
- Argynnis paphia (Silver-washed Fritillary)
- Argyreus hyperbius (India Fritillary)
- Damora sagana (Sagana Fritillary)
- Kaniska canace (Blue Admiral)
- Polygonia c-aureum (Asian Comma)
- Vanessa indica (Indian Red Admiral)
- Vanessa cardui (Painted Lady)
- Junonia almanac (Peacock Pansy)
- Chalinga pratti
- Euthalia thibetana
- Euthalia rickettsi
- Cynitia whiteheadi
- Limenitis misuji
- Athyma zeroca (Small Staff Sergeant)
- Athyma selenophora (Staff Sergeant)
- Athyma jina (Bhutan Sergeant)
- Neptis beroe
- Cyrestis thyodamas (Common Map)
- Stichophthalma Howqua
- Penthema adelma
- Lethe satyrina
- Lethe chandica
- Lethe syrcis
- Lethe lanaris
- Lethe Helena
- Lethe trimacula
- Ninguta schrenkii
- Nosea hainanensisi
- Mycalesis francisca
- Ypthima zodia
- Ypthima sinica
- Palaeonympha opalina
Total Species : 53
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