Butterfly Photography Tour in Cat Tien National Park and Dong Nai Nature Reserve
A collection of many beautiful butterfly photos that we can meet during our 2 day trip in Dong Nai Nature Reserve, Cat Tien National Park. We are pleased to be your travel companion, With a professional tour operator, in addition to guiding the tourist on how to find, approach, and photograph butterflies. We also ensure the safety of clients in the forest, creating an enjoyable trip for clients.
Please Contact Us!! for Detailed itinerary, Pricing.
Description
Butterfly Photography Tour in Cat Tien National Park and Dong Nai Nature Reserve
The tropical moist rainforests of southern Vietnam are diverse in the insect world. Those are areas typical for lowland evergreen forests, with an altitude of 300m or less. Especially butterflies, it is estimated that there are more than 1000 species of butterflies in Vietnam. And the number of species will increase even more in the future when more in-depth studies are available.
In the rainy season, colorful butterflies flutter around the trails, bushes, flowers, and small streams in the forest. This collection is part of the many beautiful butterflies that can be found here during the rainy season.
This article brings you the pictures from my weekend butterfly photography trip, with more than 30 species of beautiful and colorful butterflies.
Kallima albofasciata, the Andaman oakleaf, is the most successful fake dry leaf butterfly, they look like an amazingly dry leaf. Without the movement of wings, we would hardly recognize a butterfly. In particular, this beautiful butterfly only appears under the forest canopy.
Kallima albofasciata, view in upper side.
Appias albina (pale yellow) and Appias libythea (flying and grey patterns). Appias, commonly known as albatrosses, are medium-sized butterflies that often occur in small groups in trails.
Graphium doson, the common jay, is a black on upper side, a tropical swallowtail butterfly. Underside pale blue spots marking on brown ground. Appias albina, the common albatross in front of.
Appias libythea and Appias albina.
In this picture we can see the Appias libythea, the striped albatross is beautiful with the white underside and grey-brown patterns.
Appias lyncida, the chocolate albatross, is a striking butterfly with brilliant yellow wings, dark chocolate outer edges.
A picture with 3 species : Eurema hecabe, Gandaca harina, Caleta elna.
- Eurema hecabe: the common grass yellow, found near the ground, they usually fly slowly. This is a beautiful butterfly, the underside of the wings is bright yellow with a broad black border.
- Gandaca harina, the tree yellow: pale yellow color.
- Caleta elna: the butterfly with pied color patterns.
Graphium antiphates, the five-bar swordtail.
It appears prominent with green, light yellow, and many beautiful patterns. This is probably the thing that catches your attention the most in a crowd of butterflies.
- Graphium aristeus on the right of the picture, the common name is the chain swordtail.
- Appias albina, pale in middle.
- Graphium megarus: the common name: spotted zebra is a blur on the left side.
The Graphium aristeus versus the Prosotas nora.
The giant man next to the little man, the little man is a species of a group of butterflies of small size, the common line blue has brown wings with intricate patterns. There is a small lower tail on the hindwing.
A butterfly party, too many swallowtails here, can I offer beer to anyone who can name them?
Graphium doson, Graphium arycles, Graphium eurypylus.
The names are in order from the left to right. Graphium is a original Latin word, meaning to paint, maybe because of pictures like this?
I think this swallowtail party has 7 or 8 names. The most obvious one is probably the guy with sword, Graphium aristerus.
Graphium macareus, the lesser zebra, is the smallest swallowtail guy in the bunch.
Graphium macareus on the left and The Graphium xenocles appear prominently on the right.
Graphium megarus
Graphium sarpedon, the common bluebottle. Very common in any group.
Hypolimnas bolina, the great egg fly, appear in the trails under the foliage, iridescent blue can turn purple or gloss if we change the angle of view.
Ixias pyrene appears prominently in the group with a bright yellow color and albatross – Appias albina– are flying.
Ixias pyrene, the yellow-orange tip, is a “thunderbolt” butterfly, usually appearing 3-4m high and flying very fast in a zigzag pattern. Not easy to take pictures of them.
A pair of big, sexy and constantly waving wings. They like to dance or they feel pretty to get attention: Papilio memnon.
Papilio polytes, the common Mormon, is a common species of swallowtail butterfly widely distributed in Asia, but they are low density.
The basic color of the wings is black, with a chain of white spots on the forewing and large white streaks or yellow areas on the hindwing.
Papilio nephelus, the yellow Helen.
Troides aeacus, the golden birdwing.
In Vietnam, there are only 2 species of this butterfly genus, they have a prominent yellow color on the hind wings. This is a female butterfly looking for a host plant to lay eggs on.
Another bike, this time the long-haired guy, Zeltus amasa.
In front is the Papilio memnon, behind is another butterfly, Papilio protenor (The Spangle).
This is a rare species of butterfly in the Papilio genus, due to their characteristics of finding the right host plants, which are plants of the group citrus.
What to Bring:
- For this tour, we’ll not take any domestic flight but for your information do not bring too much luggage. For domestic flights, you can hold 23 kg. ( 50.7063 lbs.) and 7 kg. (17.637 lbs.) in hand luggage. Extra costs run by yourselves.
- Lightweight comfortable clothing is recommended, i.e. standard field pants and shirts for the entire trip, some jacket for cold places is enough. Maybe no need jacket in Vietnam (the temperature from 16-32o C )
- Laundry can be done everywhere, we’ll spend several days in one single place.
- Sunblock and hat or cap.
- Mosquito or insect repellent, if you do not have it available or doubt its specificity to the type of insect in Vietnam, we will give you a free spray bottle, very handy.
- An umbrella and rain poncho, just in case.
- Rubber boots/gumboots especially for muddy or wet areas. The purpose is to get as close enough to have a good photo. You don’t need to worry about wearing rubber boots all day. We provide nearby transportation all the time to use when it’s necessary.
- Small flashlight.
- knee pads, elbow pads
- Please using camouflaged clothing would be ok, not any military clothing avoid the second.
Recommendation:
- Camera.
- Extra Batteries.
- Flash ( optional)
- Continuous light Lamp (optional)
- Binoculars ( optional)
- Tripod (optional)
Travel insurance
We suggest that you use a travel insurance service. The normal price of this tour does not cover travel insurance.
Books / Field Guide
There is not available any specific Butterfly field guide for Vietnam, but we have several Pdf files from our Butterfly photo collection.
If you consider you can bring some other field guide are welcome, this for sure will be helpful.
Prices Include:
- Private transport is all the way.
- All accommodations in all the tours.
- Three meals per day (breakfast, lunch/ picnic, or lunchbox depending where we are, dinner, snacks, water available all the time).
- Butterfly guide specialist.
- Entrances to all Butterflying spots.
- Full board in a private tour.
– Not included:
- Laundry, beers, medical costs, insurance, or other items of personal nature.
Tour Calendar 2022
- 29th Apr 2022
- 7th May 2022.
- 16th May 2022.
- 1st June 2022.
- 10th June 2022.
If some our fixed departure doesn’t work with you, we can propose a fixed departure with your available dates, also if you need a private or customized tour, please contact us for more information, all our tours are flexible and adjustable to your needs.
