Tsai Bae-chun, an ecology photographer known as "Mr Butterfly", says his passion for the beautiful creature has only grown stronger over time. CNA

He has plunged long into a ditch in the mountains, crashed into a cliff, confronted a deadly bamboo viper and nearly frozen to death on a mountain top, all while pursuing his lifelong passion for chasing butterflies. He's never been deterred by the mishaps nor by the opposition from his family.

Tsai Bae-chun, an ecology photographer better known as "Mr Butterfly", has been chasing butterflies for more than 30 years. He says his passion for the beautiful creatures has only grown stronger over time.

He fell in love with butterflies as a child, catching them and mounting them in a book to preserve their beauty.

His interest did not become a burning obsession until 1979, when Tsai, at the age of 29, witnessed "in awe" the metamorphosis of a butterfly while visiting a friend in Hualien.

He saw a bunch of eggs hatch one night, turn into caterpillars on the wall a few days later and then become pupae before emerging as colorful butterflies. What he witnessed gave rise to his enduring obsession for the fragile-looking insects.

For the next six months, he was captivated by the natural beauty of Hualien and spent his time exploring creeks and mountains, never contacting his family. He devoured every book he could find to enhance his knowledge of the species. His reading fueled his passion.

He came across a Japanese reference book on Taiwan's butterflies, which, to his delight and dismay, presented the island's endemic species in their original sizes and colors. In comparison, Taiwan's own books on butterflies seemed "so slipshod".

Taiwan at the time was focused solely on rapid economic growth. After observing the difference in the Japanese books, Tsai felt Taiwan's mindset was too narrow.

"What's the use of a better economy if there is such a big cultural gap between Taiwan and its neighbor. It was really humiliating," he recalls.

He made up his mind then that he would one day publish his own pictorial almanac of butterflies endemic to Taiwan to bring the beauty of the "butterfly kingdom" to local residents.

When he finally returned to his home in the industrial port city of Kaohsiung six months later, he knew that he no longer could continue in the family business, a wholesale marketing of cooking oil.

"My mind was set. I wanted to be a butterfly chaser," Tsai said.

Of Taiwan's 400 butterfly species, Tsai has recorded 345 of them. Tracking them down has not been easy and has led him into plenty of adventures.

He recalled that in his initial and more "crazy" days, whenever he heard about the appearance of butterflies, he could easily cover more than 500 kilometers a day on his motorcycle.

Starting from Kaohsiung, he would ride the narrow mountainous Central Cross-Island Highway to Hualien and head south along the east coast to Taitung and Pingtung before returning to Kaohsiung.

Several times, he became so mesmerized by the butterflies, he forgot that he was on treacherous mountain roads and ended up in mountain ditches. One day while in hot pursuit of an elusive beauty, he smashed his motorcycle into the side of a mountain.

"That was actually fortunate," he says, "because if it had been the other side of the road, I would have fallen off a cliff."

This blind pursuit of butterflies has became his guiding philosophy - "using the dumb way to get the best picture".

Butterflies like to loiter by riversides, but Tsai believes photographing them from above does not make for good pictures, so he gets into position by wading into rivers, braving rapid currents, slippery rocks, and, in the early spring when some species appear, freezing cold water.

When a butterfly is perched high on a tree, he often climbs a higher tree to shoot it from a better angle. If the subject is frightened away, Tsai simply stays in the tree, waiting patiently for it to return.

His methods might seem a bit oddball to other photographers who simply use a big net to catch their quarry, release them in a fixed space and photograph them without worry.

But Tsai insists on shooting them in their natural habitat, just as he insists on using macro lenses instead of long-distance lenses to get the best quality.

Chasing butterflies is solitary work. The butterfly is a shy creature that can be frightened away by the shadow of a human being. Alone in the wild, Tsai has had numerous encounters with leeches and wasps and has heard the roars of wild animals, such as black bears.

He remembers one traumatic experience in the bitter cold on a 2,000-meter-high mountain.

"My head was spinning, and I had difficulty breathing. I didn't feel I could live until the next day," Tsai said. With no doctors or hospitals nearby, he relied on herbs for relief.

These many brushes with danger have been more than offset by the joy of his successful pursuits, such as spotting the rare and elusive broad-tailed swallowtail butterfly, considered by many the queen of butterflies, on Taiping mountain in Yilan county. The discovery came after a search spanning nearly a decade.

After nearly six years of chasing butterflies and learning butterfly basics - what they eat, when and where they appear, their movements, and the trees they like - Tsai published a picture booklet in 1984 to introduce the butterflies found in Kenting National Park.

That endeavour finally won his family over to his cause after they had opposed him for years.

He has since produced a similar booklet for Yushan National Park, written columns, served as a TV program host, and gone on ecological photography missions in many foreign countries.

In May 2007, his collection of 28 butterfly photos was exhibited at the Smithsonian Institute's National Museum of Natural History, making him the first Asian photographer to have his work displayed at the museum.

Such honors are the result of more than just his "dumb way to get the best picture". He has developed a number of special skills that have enabled him to spot and get closer to his subjects.

He has superb eyesight and his unusual ability to identify light waves, for example, helps him spot butterflies that have heavy natural camouflage, such as the orange oakleaf, which appears as a withered leaf when it folds its wings. Tsai can spot it because it emits a different light wave from its leafy likeness.

Tsai says he has also learned to "communicate" with butterflies by observing their movements. When a butterfly sips nectar from flowers, its wings flap moderately, but the flapping quickens when it is alarmed.

If a butterfly is unwilling to leave a flower, the flapping will increase, revealing it is aware of an encroaching threat.

He also has developed a "dance" that lets him get closer to his target. When he is five meters away, he swings his arms in an exaggerated way to acclimate the butterfly to his presence, and then moves to within two meters at a moderate pace.

To get even closer, he moves his legs forward first and then slowly follows with his upper body, but even this stealthy approach often fails.

For all of Tsai's recognition and expertise, chasing butterflies is not very profitable. To cover his basic expenses of NT$1 million ($30,300) a year, he has sold three houses in recent years and works as a street vendor from mid-autumn to early spring when there are few butterflies to chase.

Though not wealthy, Tsai uses some of his limited funds to give speeches around the island and offer butterfly-related gifts to children to instill in them the concept of conservation.

Tsai, who claims he has been "immature", and a "toddler" during his long journey chasing butterflies, says he will continue his blind pursuit to get people more focused on the environment.

"By getting people to appreciate the beauty of butterflies through my photos, they will naturally want to protect and preserve the environment suitable for them and eventually harbor a love for the land known as the 'kingdom of butterflies'," he says.

China Daily/CNA

(HK Edition 08/29/2009 page4)