The Bamboo Forest

The bamboo forest is one of the six transects, and one that has the fewest butterfly populations. Butterflies are rarely seen under the canopy of the bamboo forest. Two separate days were spent in the forest looking for butterflies but the numbers we saw were low.

You can see from the first photo that there is little sunlight in the forest. Butterflies congregate more on the edges of the forest and in open areas. They do need nectar so look for flowers - which are not seen as much deep inside the dense bamboo.

Trekking in the bamboo forest is difficult and in this situation it is extra strenuous because of the steep grade. This day we climbed the first of the three peaks in Tam Dao, which is also the highest and covered in dense bamboo forest, which I came to be grateful for - it provided things to hang on to when the climbing got tough.