What seemed like Browns fluttering from a distance turned out to be not just some Evening browns, Glad eye bushbrown and common bushbrown but Blue oakleaf (Kallima philarchus).
Along with the Bushbrown butterflies and a few beetles about 5 Blue oakleaf butterflies were feeding on the tree sap , whose name I am ashamed to say I don't know. With the excitement of seeing the oakleaves I forgot to photograph the tree to ID it.
Now, the obviously interesting thing about oakleaf butterfly is that they are found in the evergreen forests and mimic dry oak leaves. They don't just have the shape and colour of the leaf, they come, together with the blotches a dry leaf sports, a mid rib, a stalk and to top it with a flourish a transparent spot on its apex! (To break its outline, i guess).
It has blue-indigo discal bands running on the upper wing which it flashes when it takes off only to settle among the foliage the next minute, closing its wings, with its under wing looking like a leaf, completely throwing off its predator that keeps looking out for something blue.
The only other Oakleaf butterfly I have come across was the Orange oakleaf in Buxa tiger reserve - that did not bless me with its upper wing (sigh)
