They are pretty, colourful and mostly considered a symbol of happiness and auspiciousness among several cultures. But most importantly, butterflies are a vital part of the eco-system, facilitating pollination and acting as the food source to birds, spiders, lizards, wasps and other creatures. And there are over 1,300 species of the winged insects in India. To celebrate the insect, over 25 organisations working in biodiversity conservation have joined hands to observe September as the Big Butterfly Month, starting this Saturday.

Apart from BNHS, some of the other participating organisations for the carnival include Diversity India, National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS) and Indian Foundation for Butterflies (IFB). Sohail Madan, centre manager, BNHS Delhi, tells us the two-week-long celebrations are aimed at sensitising the general public about butterflies, bridging information gap on species in the country, and ultimately, protecting and opening up new habitats for them. "For the past three years, we've been observing the Delhi Butterfly Month. With the COVID-19 situation, we felt this was the best opportunity to scale it up on a national level," he shares, adding that there are activities both on a national level on the web, as well as physical ones, like walks, wherever possible locally, while observing
distancing norms.