We’re delighted to be offering this brand new tour to India! It is sure to be popular, read on to find out why…

Escape the winter blues and join us in India, where we have a week looking at some of the 400 species of butterflies found in the beautiful Western Ghats. No visit to India is complete without seeing tigers, so we also have 3 days based in one of the top tiger lodges in India. Tadoba tiger reserve is probably the best place in India to see tigers – we typically have at least one or two close encounters each day, and believe us when we say that *nothing* matches the experience of watching these magnificent animals in the wild.

Our tour begins at Cochin (Kochi) from where we transfer to the lowland forests at Thattekad. It’s only a 90 minute journey, so if the group arrives at Kochi early in the morning, we’ll have most of the day, and the following day at Thattekad. Over 270 species of birds occur at Thattekad, together with 30 mammals, scores of colourful dragonflies and damselflies, and up to 200 species of butterfly. Swallowtails include the Malabar Banded Peacock, Paris Peacock, Blue Mormon and Southern Birdwing. We’ll also see many colourful Nymphalidae, Danainae and Pieridae, together with beautiful skippers such as Chestnut Angle, Golden Angle and Fulvous Pied Flat.

In the late afternoon of day 2 we transfer to Munnar, a journey of about 2 hours. Much of the hills here are dominated by huge tea plantations, but there are also extensive forests, where we’ll explore roadsides and trails for high elevation butterflies.

Next we have almost 2 days of butterfly watching at Chinnar – an area of dry open scrubland where we expect to see a variety of Orange tips, Red Pierrot, Grass Yellows, Lime butterfly, Crimson Rose, Common Jezebel, various Pansies, Indian Cupid, Monkey Puzzle and much more.

Then we head to Vattavada, which will be our base for 2 full days of butterfly watching in the very scenic Pampadam national park. Here we expect to see Bluebottle, Blue Tiger, Striped Tiger, Blue Wanderer, Common Silverline, Fluffy Tit, Purple Sapphire, Indian Sunbeam, Common Red-eye, Red-disc Bush Brown, and many colourful Nymphalidae including Common Nawab, Sailors, Common Sergeant, Commander, Common Lascar, Orange Oakleaf, Blue Oakleaf, Gaudy Baron, Yellow Pansy, Peacock Pansy, Indian Red Admiral and Nilgiri Clouded Yellow, to name just a few.

Day 8 is a transit day – we return to Cochin and catch a flight to Nagpur, and then drive to Tadoba national park, in time for a late afternoon tiger-watching safari. We have 3 nights here at a very comfortable lodge, and a total of 5 tiger safaris. Each day we’ll set off in our open jeeps at dawn, and spend the morning searching for tigers, leopards, wild dogs, chital deer, sambar, monkeys and birds. The safari drive lasts for about 4 hours, and includes a half hour breakfast stop. We return to the lodge at about 11am where we can relax and watch butterflies and birds in the lodge grounds until lunchtime. After lunch there will be more opportunities to explore around the lodge, or guests can simply rest until we go out on our afternoon safari drive – another 3 hours in search of tigers and a huge variety of other animals and birds.

Your tour leader is Adrian Hoskins, a tropical butterfly specialist and author of “Butterflies of the World”, “1000 Butterflies” and several scientific papers. He has travelled extensively worldwide, including many trips to India for both butterfly study and wildlife photography. Our local leader is an expert on Indian butterflies who has led numerous butterfly tours. He has his own huge butterfly garden in Kolkata which attracts thousands of visitors, and is an avid conservationist involved in projects to protect tigers and other wildlife.

There are several affordable field guides to Indian butterflies, but by far the best book, although heavy and quite pricey, is “A Guide to the Butterflies of the Western Ghats” by Milind Bhakare and Hemant Ogale.

Tour price does NOT include the domestic flight from Kochi to Nagpur. You will be advised on which flights to book, a few weeks prior to departure. Itinerary is subject to change subject to local weather conditions and other factors, but we’ll adhere as closely as possible to the above.