Bloomsday talk

Spring is the time of year when we see bushes and trees
in Dubai in full bloom. Moths, butterflies, dragonflies buzz around foliage and bees hum in a raucous monotone. One of the most beautiful sights in and around the gardens of Dubai is of butterflies flitting from one garden to another.

Here, our photographer has captured a tiger butterfly gathering pollen from bright orange flowers. Dr Reza Khan, director of the Dubai Zoo, who used to chase a lot of dragonflies and butterflies as a child, has a lot to say about these enchanting winged creatures. "There are about 50 species of butterfly in the UAE.

Permanent resident and other species are restricted to the Hajar Mountains. But soon after the winter rains when the desert is decorated with plants, their multicoloured flowers attract the most species."

Butterflies are attracted to flowers of blue, dark pink, yellow, orange, red and purple hues with strong scents. They also visit species of plants on which they lay eggs so that their caterpillar larvae can feed on the leaves of the host plant.
It is common to come across the Lime or Lemon species of butterfly around Jumeirah. In addition to sucking nectar from various garden flowers, this species also prefers to visit citrus plants to lay eggs as the larvae feeds on lime leaves.

"A majority of adult butterflies survive on flower nectar, a sugary fluid secreted by many flowers. Some depend on fluids sipped out of rotting fruit, mushy dung and
wet soil and decaying flesh. Just a handful of them consume flower pollen. One particular species – the Harvest Butterfly – is known to sip the body fluid from woolly aphids. In a day – 12 hours – a butterfly can visit up to 1,000 flowers or repeatedly visit a few dozen flowers until the nectar
completely vanishes from these flowers."

– Suchitra Bajpai Chaudhary, Senior Feature Writer, Friday