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North East Butterfly Meet V– Pakke Tiger Reserve
On the way to Seijosa The success of NEBM Season IV held at Dzongu Valley, Sikkim in 2018 meant, the participants were looking forward to the next meet. The next meet venue and dates were announced sometime during the month of May 2018. The place was chosen to be Pakke Tiger Reserve, Arunachal Pradesh and the dates were Sep 29th to Oct 1st, 2018. From TNBS, two of us, Nishanth and I, were scheduled to visit again and approached the Organisers accordingly we were accommodated for this meet too, which generally has restriction with respect to no of participants which is pegged at about thirty.
Photo Credit: NEBM Meet WhatsApp group
With all the preparations and plans, we landed at Tezpur military airport on 28 th September early morning from Kolkata. We took a private taxi to reach the Tezpur ASTC bus stand and from there we were taken to the Kekorapul Private Bus Stand by Mr. Monsoon who was kind enough to pick us from the ASTC to this private bus stand which is a Km apart from each other, but for the first timers to the unknown lands, it is surely a few Km away. The pick-up traveller van was waiting for us at the Private Bus Stand and we took the time available with us until 230 PM for a quick but delicious lunch at a local restaurant and for some butterflying around the bus stand. Tezpur, I was told had a record of a few hundreds of butterflies (records maintained by one Ms. Binita Goswami). In the couple of hours, we spent on spotting these butterflies in and around the area, we could record about 30 species which included species like Leopard Lacewing, Grey Pansy, Commander, Darkbranded Bushbrown, Eastern Striped Albatross and a possible Black-spotted Pierrot. It was raining on and off from the time we landed at Tezpur. The participants from various locations, and mainly from Guwahati, were coming in slowly and we all left the town of Tezpur around 3 PM. The pick-up van had enough space as a group of participants reached the venue a day earlier and we also picked up a few more participants on the way. The road to Seijosa was about 60 Km but the condition of the road and a Teastop in between meant, we reached the gates of Pakke TR, when the light just failed for the day. As it happens with any meet, there was a buzz in meeting new and old friends and the race to select some good resting places for everyone. Mr. Chandan, who works as a Biologist with the TR, Mr. Kamal Azad, Mr. Baskar, Mr. Deepak and Mr. Monsoon (this is basically the core team of Organisers) took great care in accommodating everyone’s room and we were allotted a single room with double cot. The facilities were good and beyond expectation except for the Electricity which is cut off due to floods here for quite some time now. So, we must adjust with the ration of a few hours of power in the night and in the PATTAMPOOCHI A TNBS MAGAZINE WINGS 3 VEINS 1
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