[This post was updated with new sightings till December 2021. A total of 38 species were identified.]
All of us have surely encountered butterflies at some point in time (apart from the butterflies in our stomachs!). We learn about them in primary school. Sometimes they fly into us and make us jump. Often we see them just flutter by, so quick that we can’t even give them a second glance.
Ever since lockdown, we haven’t really been anywhere in Mumbai. No restaurants, no malls, no parks – except for the park in our Whispering Palms Complex, that is usually quite empty. Over the last few months during our daily walks, we looked forward to seeing the different birds in our backyard. More recently though, we noticed the many different butterflies – not surprising, given the sprawling gardens with abundance of trees and flowers, some wild and some nurtured.
With their beautiful wings in a variety of designs and colours, butterflies are in a way like birds. In Marathi in fact, butterflies are called “flowerbirds”.
पाखरू ⇄ bird फुलपाखरू ⇄ butterfly

We started taking pictures and identifying them with the help of books and the internet, and when we do this we refresh our school memory and also learn new things about them.
Butterflies belong to a large insect group called Lepidoptera (scaly wing), along with moths. They are classified into two big families – Skippers that have their antennae tips hooked, and Papilionoidea (True Butterflies) that have clubbed antennae tips. The open wings view (or upper) is usually quite different from the closed wings view (where we see the butterfly’s face and the under of the wings). Certain species are variable, meaning that the butterflies may not look exactly what you see in the books.
The hours just fly by, watching them as they move from one plant to another, haltingly rest, and come back to the same plant again. Butterfly adults live from a couple of weeks to a maximum of 8 months. They look aimless sometimes, but for them, it’s all about feeding and propagating the species in the limited time that they have.
In Mumbai’s hill station Matheran alone, over 140 species of butterfly have been found. In a BNHS Reserve field guide, they have featured over 60 species that are commonly seen in the their premises in Mumbai Suburbs where we are located.
Here are over 20 species [Edit: many more being added] that we have captured for the record, some on a basic Canon DSLR, some on mobile phone cameras. There are others that we have seen, that have eluded our fumbling fingers.
Edit: List of species, July 2021 to December 2021
Skippers
- Small Branded Swift
- Blank Swift
- Indian Palm Bob
- Common Redeye
Swallowtails
- Lime
- Common Rose
- Common Mormon
- Blue Mormon
- Tailed Jay
- Common Jay
- Common Mime
Whites and Yellows
- Common Grass Yellow
- Common Emigrant
- Mottled Emigrant
- Common Wanderer
- Great Orange Tip
- Psyche
- Cabbage White
Brush-footed
- Blue Tiger
- Plain Tiger
- Tawny Coster
- Common Baron
- Common Bushbrown
- Common/Dingy Evening Brown
- Chocolate Pansy
- Grey Pansy
- Lemon Pansy
- Common Palmfly
- Tailed Palmfly
- Great Eggfly
- Blue Oak Leaf
- Common Indian Crow
- Common Castor
- Commander
Blues
- Gram Blue
- Dark Grass Blue
- Indian Red Pierrot
- Monkey Puzzle
Skippers
Skippers are a bit challenging to positively identify, especially for the novice. They’re mostly different shades of brown with distinctive markings that require pictures from different angles. Now with them restless as ever, getting one shot itself is an achievement of sorts. With the help of members of Butterflies of India group on Facebook, we narrowed down on the possible species, hopefully not off the mark.
Small Branded Swift
Blank Swift
Indian Palm Bob
Common Redeye
Swallowtails
Lime
Common Rose

Common Mormon mimicry
The Common Mormon female is known to mimic the Crimson Rose (Pachliopta hector) and the Common Rose (Pachliopta aristolochiae) so IDing it is a bit tricky.

Common Mormon
Blue Mormon
Tailed Jay
Common Jay
Common Mime
Whites and Yellows
Common Grass Yellow
Common Emigrant
Mottled Emigrant
Common Wanderer
Great Orange Tip
Psyche
Cabbage White
Brush-footed
Blue Tiger
Plain Tiger
Tawny Coster
Common Baron
Common/Dingy Bushbrown
Common Evening Brown
Chocolate Pansy
Grey Pansy
Lemon Pansy
Common Palmfly
Tailed Palmfly
Great Eggfly
Blue Oak Leaf
Common Indian Crow
Common Castor
Commander
Blues
Gram Blue
Dark Grass Blue
Indian Red Pierrot
Monkey Puzzle
The next time you are outdoors, keep an eye out for these fluttering beauties.
All pictures taken at Whispering Palms Complex, Lokhandwala Township, Kandivali East, in Jul-Sep, by one of us – son Gautam, husband Srivathsa, me.
Addendum pictures – taken post the blog posting date till December 2021