The Butterfly Memories - Visit to Ovalekar Wadi Butterfly Garden

Throwback to reminiscing the college days and the field visits to learn a few concepts. While I was pursuing my professional course in photography, we would often visit various places to try out the things we learnt in the classroom. It was fun to visit these places because with the bunch of friends along, it would make the whole experience even more better. One such place I visited then to experiment about wildlife photography was Ovalekar Wadi Butterfly Garden in Thane, Mumbai. 

Wildlife photography is all about clicking the birds and animals in their natural habitat and thus it is extremely important to not intrude in their course while taking pictures. We have all chased the butterflies as kids and tried to catch them as they would just flee off when we would get close. But here the challenge was to let the butterfly settle in or click the butterfly in flight while not loosing focus on the subject. I have used the 18 - 55 mm kit lens to take all these pictures but it was indeed a challenge to shoot as your distance from the butterfly determines your composition and getting too close would mean the butterfly would fly off. I did have a few of my moments where I whispered under my nose that if only i had the zoom lens, I could capture that shot.

Ovalekar Wadi is a garden curated by the Wadi family, who started planting the required kinds of plants that would attract different species of the butterflies for nectar and breeding. You get an orientation and walk around the place where you learn about the plants and butterflies that come over the garden during their preferred seasons. It was intriguing to know the process on how this farm was converted into a garden that serves and attracts so many different kinds of butterflies.

I would not be able to differentiate and name the butterfly species in the pictures I have, but I certainly enjoyed my time at the garden because I am person always fascinated with nature and its way of survival. If you are a photographer and want to capture some colorful species, I suggest you visit the garden to experiment. There is so much more to nature which we may have been missing out due our swamped up lives. The garden is located at Ovalekar Wadi, Owala Village, Takkarda Road, Ghodbunder Road, Thane. 

Looking back at these pictures from my hard drive certainly reminds me that its been a while I spent time with my camera. I am hoping to visit this garden once this quarantine situation eases up and relive the college days with my bunch of friends.