Butterfly park, Thane, Maharashtra India

Few weeks back on a lazy Sunday morning we planned a visit to Ovalekar Wadi Butterfly Garden. Managed by Ovalekar brothers this garden is set up in a private farm, at the foot hills of Sanjay Gandhi National Park(Thane) and is home for 132 spices of butterflies. This is an open air garden, that is, you find butterfly in natural surrounding and not in enclosure. The plantation of  larval host plants, help in butterfly breeding.

As we reached, we were asked to register with names and contact details and were briefed about the life cycle of butterfly, with live samples. And introduced to different species of butterflies.

Thane’s Ovalekar Wadi is tucked away in a corner just off Ghodbunder Road, where Mumbai’s newly minted middle-class is driving up property prices and decibel levels. The park, however offers a slice of green peace in the midst of the construction boom. Ovalekar, along with Mumbai’s best-known butterfly expert, Isaac Kehimkar of the BNHS, have installed hundreds of nectaring plants such as passion flowers, hibiscus and lantanas from the nearby hills, riverbanks and such unlikely places as sewers and railway tracks. They’ve also planted chickoo, berry, mango and banana trees to provide additional fodder for the butterflies, who feast on over-ripe fruits. “I gathered a lot of my information from magazines and Kehimkar’s book on butterflies,” said Ovalekar. “I wanted the butterflies to have a natural place to breed and live, unlike many places in the world where they are reared in laboratories.”