Day 1: Format and Notations

Like everybody else, I see many butterflies during the course of a normal day. The difference is that I actually take a second or two to look at them. Maybe this is because of my interest in clicking butterflies (along with flowers, moths, dragonflies, etc.). Maybe it is just because of my admiration for the beauties of the natural world, even without the selfish motive of photographing them. Or perhaps at some level I realize that the fewer butterflies I see in my normal environment, the less hope there is of maintaining the delicate ecological balance of the world we live in. In any case I have decided, for no reason in particular, to keep a daily record of the butterflies I spot

Each day's diary entry would have the date in dd-mm-yyyy format as the title, and the post itself would consist of the following details:

• One or more paragraphs, starting with Place Name (Area, City, State if other than Maharashtra)
• Multiple lines in each paragraph, starting with a single letter that denotes to what level I could identify the butterfly
• Next would be the family name and appearance (only if I was not able to identify the butterfly further)  
• Or else the common name of the genus (only if I was not able to identify the butterfly further)
• Or else (ideally) just the common name of the species

For example the title of today's post would have been 10-08-2012 and the text would have been:

Mulund, Mumbai

G Grass Yellows (mostly Common)

S Common Castor

S Great Eggfly

F Lycaenid, small with whitish UN, jerky flight pattern, seen in tree canopy

S Common Crow

S Common Emigrant
S Common Evening Brown

Whenever possible I shall add photographs of the butterflies spotted