The remote terrains, limited public transport options, expensive private travel and unpredictable climatic conditions make travelling to the Northeast a challenge. Although these factors have helped preserve the region’s natural habitats and diversity; making it a biodiversity hotspot and a dream destination for visit. When both of us learnt of this possibility to explore Dehing Patkai National Park (DPNP) under Wiki Loves Butterfly (WLB) Project run by the very own Wiki Butterfly lady Ananya Mondal we grabbed the opportunity.
The Beginning: Embracing the Challenge
Dehing Patkai National Park (232 Sq Km) is part of the Dehing Patkai landscape (575 Sq Km), which is the largest and only remaining stretch of lowland rainforests in India. These Rainforests are by the foothills of Himalayas called as “Patkai” and have Dehing River, (one of the largest tributaries of Brahmaputra) flowing by the foothills, therefore get the name, Dehing Patkai.
Two three months before the trip we started with our ground work to know this place better. We spoke to friends, looked up on the internet; made more friends online, gathered every little bit of information from them, prepared our butterfly checklist and wishlist, found a local guide, booked our tickets, paid the token advance and waited for the day to begin our travel.
Day 1: From Guwahati to Rani
Finally, the day arrived, we took early morning flights on 25th September 2024 to reach Guwahati from where our adventure together began. First on the list was visiting Rani, a local butterfly hotspot very close to the airport. We spent a couple of hours here and were lucky to capture quite a few butterflies, including some lifers for both of us.
Train Journey to Tinsukhiya: A Wet Welcome
Happy and content with the day, we packed up and took the evening train to Tinsukhiya. This was where Dehing Patkai National Park is and we were going to spend coming 5 days. A lashing rain welcomed us on the railway station.
Arrival at Naharkatiya: Meeting Our Guide
Our plan to take public transport outside for reaching our homestay in Naharkatiya from here went on hold. Killing time on the railway station we heard the announcements about the right time of a local train. Quickly we approached the enquiry counter, checked if there is any train going to Naharkatiya and there it was. We confirmed with our guide once and boarded this around 7 am. The local train took an hour and half to reach Naharkatiya. The rain was now reduced to a drizzle. Debojit dada picked us up and in 15 minutes we reached his home, our home stay.
Dehing Patkai: The Jungle Adventure Begins
After a quick fresh up and breakfast we were ready for the adventures of the day. First, we hitched a ride on sand truck to arrive at Dehing Patkai. Standing on top of truck we spotted the entrance gate from a distance. It looked just so welcoming to us. A step inside the gate and looking at the towering Hollong trees (this is also state tree of Assam) we knew exactly why these lowland rain forests are called the “Amazon of the East”.
A Birdwing and a Red Helen butterfly split both of us into two directions. The butterflies flew away and we both followed the guide on our trail for the day. We must have barely walked for 5 minutes when the nice cool atmosphere became wet. It started pouring heavily. We spent rest of the day hoping that rains might stop at any moment.
Another happy realization came our way: why this is a rain forest, once it starts raining there is no stopping. We could still sense the richness of the habitat as in-between rains we got to spot forester, bushbrown sp, red eyes, archdukes and Jungle Glory etc. It wasn’t the right day to explore the habitat fully.
Day 2: Sunshine and Butterfly Bonanza
Day two brought sunny weather and the best butterfly sightings. Like previous day, we hitch hiked another truck experiencing a ride straight from the amusement park. We were riding on back of a truck observing the moving jungle and flying birds, butterflies and branches coming close to our head making us duck down right in time. Some filmy songs automatically started coming out of both of us and we had the best time balancing ourselves, giggling and laughing out loud at the same time.
The day was filled with great butterfly activity, we could not move around much as at one spot we got just so many butterflies giving us good photo shoots. We were especially happy with the crow species. Unless you get the upper-side, its difficult to identify then and here they were inviting us to take photographs giving both the upper and underside. Also, the chocolate royals here gave us a chocolaty treat, there were just so many of them, few decided to hitch hike on our shoulder, head, camera etc.
The Rain Gods: Dehing Patkai’s Eternal Downpour
The following three days again the rain Gods kept reminding us that we are in Dehing Patkai, the lowland rain forests. Bowing to them, taking them on our head, face and shoulders we managed to capture few more butterflies from our wish list. Overall, in 5 days, we documented over 135 species of butterflies from Jeypore Rain Forest, Saraipong Range and Jokai (this is a reserve forest and not part of DPNP)
The Encounters: Connections Beyond Butterflies
In between butterflying we feel lucky to having met Satyendra Dutta at his residence one evening. In our preliminary research about this area, his butterfly posts kept our adrenaline and resolve high to plan this trip. We not only received a warm welcome at his home but an entire tour of house with butterfly hosts and nectar plant, stories behind some exclusive captures and a lot of interesting photographs taken by Sir over the past couple of years exploring Dehing and nearby areas. While we got talking like long lost friends Ms Dutta turned out a quick delicious dinner for us.
On our way back, one day, we also had an opportunity to meet our Guide, Debojit Dada’s family in Digboi. His parents have a small garden outside their home and here again we ran around with our camera and found a lifer, a Bush Hopper, resting quietly in their sugarcane plant. The elderly parents were quite amused to see two girls from far away land visiting Dehing Patkai for butterflies. They spoke about things that we could not fully understand due to language barrier still from the smiles and gestures, we gathered how fortunate we were on this trip. A small insect, a butterfly helps us explore and experience the rich and varied diversity our country has to offer us.
A Dream Realized: The Future of Butterfly Conservation
Based on our short visit, we believe that conducting year-round monitoring in these areas will yield valuable photo documentation especially the early stages which are hardly documented or studied. Our photographs from the trip can be found on Wikimedia under the tag “WLB Dehing Patkai National Park”
The trip was possible with guidance, support and funding from Wiki Love Butterfly, a digital conservation and scientific-based field documentation project aiming to improve Wikimedia’s coverage of butterflies in the North Eastern States of India. Our heartfelt thanks to Ananya Mondal for trusting us and encouraging us at every step to realise this dream to reality.
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