Vellalore Lake, Coimbatore

Vellalore Lake in Coimbatore covers about 90 acres. After lying dry for more than twenty years, it filled again in 2018 thanks to work by the district administration and NGOs, and in April 2023 the administration and Kovai Kulangal Padhukappu Amaippu began work on a butterfly park.

The green belt of native trees and flowers around the water attracts more than 80 species. Spot-billed pelicans breed here, and in winter thousands of migratory rosy starlings come to roost. The lake is also a butterfly hotspot: Blue Mormons have been seen in large numbers, along with the common banded peacock, medus brown, chocolate albatross and bamboo treebrown, and the Tamil Nadu Butterfly Society has recorded 83 species here.