Dashing Wolf

Dashing Wolf

Hello friends, wish you all a very happy Sunday, for me now Sunday has become Blog day.  

Writing is wonderful feeling as it gives opportunity to write my heart out and share wonderful experiences with lovely readers. Today I am in double mind on topic to introduce,  a bird or a animal, finally the choice for today’s blog is Indian Wolf. What a Dashing animal especially when you see it on green grassland.

I will never forget sighting of Indian Wolf somewhere near Nasik, we never planned this visit it was last minute choice by Saurabh and Jogi, never question experts you just need to follow them, as me and Vishnu did, four of us started in a car in search for fun without any expectations of sighting, the idea was just to evaluate new place. After a long drive between us we saw black bucks, we were happy with sighting and started clicking to test our photography skills. The time we were busy running behind bucks, we heard a instruction from our champ Saurabh “Don’t move guys take your position”  and guess what the arrival of stars in style “The Indian Wolf” we had wonderful time capturing them with great memory with us, the pictures will tell you the rest.

Sharing some facts about Indian Wolf

Introduction

The Indian wolf is a subspecies of grey wolf that ranges from Southwest Asia to the Indian Subcontinent. The reddish or light brown coloring of the Indian Wolf is part of the reason that many believe it to be a fox when they catch a glimpse of it in the wild. They also have a coat that is shorter and less dense than other species of wolves. These wolves are found on the open lands of India and they are able to survive in areas that are considered to be desert like in nature.

For the Indian Wolf a diet that is composed of small animals is what they survive on. This includes rodents, rabbits, and raccoons. The pack will be very loosely around a given area and each of them will hunt for their own food. This hunting usually takes place at night and ends at dusk.

Conservation

It is believed that only about 3,000 Indian Wolves remain in the wild today, Due to the bad reputation that these wolves have and the poor economic area where they live, it is hard to get effective practices in place for conservation.

Human V/S animal

There are stories in India about this particular wolf stealing small children. Indian wolf is known to kill livestock though which means it has become an enemy of people in those regions. They are also known to attack humans and experts believe this is due to their lack of food in their natural environment. Reason I believe for this conflict is cutting down of forest lands which creates scarcity for land for animals and such conflict take place, it is high time that we understand to make balance between development and conservation.

Message of the Day – Plant more and more Trees

The best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago. The second best time is now.

Author:

BT Wild Art - Life is Safari. Enjoy it.

bhavesh thakkar photography

Lovely Owl

Hello friends, happy Sunday to all of you, today’s topic is Owl, one of my favorite bird.  

Owl is lovely bird but with complications in terms of whether it brings good or bad luck, belief changes from territory to territory. The topic is so deep that one can write pages and page, there are lots of stories attached with owl since childhood and hence it is difficult to pick and choose on write up.

There are two different beliefs about Owl which remains inconclusive as it is linked to religion, at some places owls are used for scarifies for black magic (Tantrik Vidya), this is unfortunate for survival of such a beautiful bird, hope some efforts will be made by the Forest Department to save Owls.  

Good omen: In some part it is viewed as good omen where it is believed that it represents Lakshmi Devi’s Vahana

Bad Omen: One of the worst beliefs about Owl is viewed as symbol of bad luck, ill health or death without any logic. It was believed that owls were harbingers of death, if one saw an owl or heard its hoot, someone was going to die and unfortunately this belief is widespread even today.

I have been tracking Owls across the places for past four years and I found them Super se bhi Uper bird. In my opinion Owls are unquestionably gorgeous and mysterious bird, they are surely not the symbol of death, illness or bad luck.

Introduction

Owls are birds from the order Strigiformes, which includes about 200 species of mostly solitary and nocturnal birds of prey. Owls have super-tuned senses that help them hunt prey all over the places, they feed on small mammals such as rodents, insects, and other birds, and a few species like to eat fish as well.

Mysterious facts about Owls

1.    Owls can turn head almost all the way around

2.    Owls are far sighted, Instead of spherical eyeballs, owls have "eye tubes"

3.    Owls swallow preay whole then barf up the carcass

4.    Some time Owl eats other species of Owl or large prey like such as small deer

Types of Owl

Forest owlet very rare and found near Tansa River in Maharashtra, Jungle owlet, Bran owl, Brown fish owl, Eagle Owl, Mottled wood owl, Scoops owl, Spotted owlet and may more which I am yet to evaluate

Owls are found in cities as well as forest land based on type of type of owl, they are photogenic because of beautiful eyes hence it is in favorite list of wildlife lovers. 

Posting pictures of different types of owls, hope you will love it.

Message of the Day – Keep you country clean

To live healthy life it is important we maintain cleanliness around us which will make our country a great place.

#SwachhaBharat.

Spotted owlet - Bharatpur bird sanctuary

Owlet - Satupda National Park

Mottled Wood Owl  - Tadoba Tiger Reserve

Eagle Owl - Nanaj -Solapur

Jungle Owlet - Pench Tiger Reserve

Spotted Owlet  - Bharatpur Bird Sanctuary 

Spotted Owlet - Bharatpur Bird Sanctuary

Brown Fish Owl- Jim Corbett

Jim Corbett

Beautiful Flamingo

Beautiful Flamingo

I insist readers to read message of the day prior to reading details on Flamingo

Message of the Day - SAVE WATER, WATER WILL SAVE US

Time is knocking doors to remind us the importance of saving nature. Water lands will always remain in favorite list of industrialist but always we cannot held them responsible, Each and every citizen is  equally responsible to keep our water land clean and pollution free to ensure we get clean water and natural habitat is also well maintained.   

We have been polluting our holy rivers (Ganga Yamuna Narmada Kaveri etc) it is high time that we change out mindset, we need to realize that polluted water from river will not only kill nature/birds but will kill human beings as well on account of polluted water. 

Join hands and take as oath that we will not pollute rivers and we will not waste water

Here you go with Flamingo, 

Hello friends, let me thank each one of you for reading the blog.

Today the blog is on information on lovely bird “Flamingo” one of my favorite. In fact my first photo tour started with Flamingo from Bhigwan and I fell in love with this bird. Flamingos are my guest,  they visit my home (Seawoods) in summer (April to June), Flamingos visit in flocks which treat to watch and capture, this also gives opportunity to enhance photography skills. Instead of writing more on my feeling let me introduce Flamingo to you.

Sandeep Lahiri, Padmini Desai, hope you remember Bhigwan trip

Introduction to the world of Flamingo?

Flamingo is a wading bird in the family Phoenicopteridae, the only bird family in the order Phoenicopteriformes. Six extant flamingo species are recognized by most sources, and were formerly placed in one genus – Phoenicopterus.

There are six types of flamingo namely Greater flamingo, Lesser flamingo, Chilean flamingo, James's flamingo, Andean flamingo and American flamingo.

Famous locations in India: November to June (approximately 2hrs before or after high tide)

Sewree Mumbai, Seawoods New Mumbai, Thane Creak, Bhigwan, Pune Jamnagar (Breeding Ground in Gujarat. Ran of Kutch

Behavioral details: 

Grater Flamingo: 120-145 cm Flies with neck outstretched and legs protruding well beyond tail. Juvenile dirty grey-brown, legs and bill grey, latter tipped darker. Feeding flocks emit a constant, low, goose-like growling

Habitat: Salt lakes, sea bays, less often on freshwater lakes and ponds.

Sound: In flight utters a honking kla-ha.

Lesser Flamingo: 80–90cm FIELD NOTES: Flies with neck outstretched and legs protruding well beyond tail. Juvenile dirty grey-brown with black bill, Feeding flocks give a constant low murmuring.

Habitat: Saltpans and coastal lagoons

Sound: In flight utters a high pitched kwirrk

 Lifecycle

Flamingos are very social birds; they live in colonies whose population can number in the thousands. These large colonies are believed to serve three purposes for the flamingos avoiding predators, maximizing food intake, and using scarce suitable nesting sites more efficiently. Before breeding, flamingo colonies split into breeding groups of about 15 to 50 birds. Both males and females in these groups perform synchronized ritual displays.

A treat to watch,  the members of a group stand together and display to each other by stretching their necks upwards, then uttering calls while head-flagging, and then flapping their wings

Unique fact to know:

Recent molecular studies have suggested a relation with grebes, while morphological evidence also strongly supports a relationship between flamingos and grebes. They hold at least 11 morphological traits in common, which are not found in other birds. Many of these characteristics have been previously identified on flamingos, but not on grebes.

Author:

BT Wild Art - Life is Safari. Enjoy it.

bhavesh thakkar photography

Conservation of Wildlife, birding habitat and Mother Nature

This is my first article and I am glad that I got opportunity to begin with beautiful topic such as nature.

 Everyone love nature and enjoy the same during the holidays to come out of stress, routine life and work pressure but we easily forget the same once holiday is over. Now the time has come to conserve our mother nature so as our next generation do not suffer.

Let us understand what conservation is and why it has become so important for our future?

Conservation typically means protecting wildlife, species and their habitat; we need to go one step further to explore unattended areas having habitat of wildlife, birds or unique plants, which will help us to reap the rewards in the future as well as saving these area from unwanted exploitation from industries.

These days biggest challenge is saving natural resources from industries in name of development, we are taking away lands from habitats and destroying nature while calling it development. The important thing is that we need to understand how to make balance between development and conservation since both are equally important but due to commercial thought process we avoid rather ignore importance of conservation and destroying it continuously, impact of which is visible and it is high time that we realize and put strong efforts towards conserving and developing fruitful locations.

Before I end the article I would like to touch upon area which I feel need focus, conservation is not only saving tigers or land with tiger density but also preserving habitat of birds which are vulnerable due to fast depleting in numbers. Today’s topic is on “Indian Skimmers”

Important details about Indian Skimmers:

A lovely bird is found in Southern Asia mainly in rivers or estuaries, places like Odisha and Chambal. The unique behavior of this bird is the way it catch it’s pray, it has short upper mandible and the longer lower mandible that is ploughed along the surface of water as the bird flies over the water to pick aquatic prey. It  is a treat to watch  and capture in camera when it skim through water for catching fish, but very soon it will become history due to lack of conservation of its habitat. As per the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) the status is vulnerable since 1994, the count is on a rapid decline as a result of widespread degradation and disturbance of lowland rivers and lakes. Rapid decline since 1994 shows that there has been no enough efforts towards conservation of rivers and lakes, they are highly destroyed by way of chemical waste, illegal sand mining, cutting of river area for commercial purpose etc. this caused issue of survival and growth of unique bird. The core issue is that we are moving towards development at unrecoverable cost of Mother Nature, the time has come to realize the urgent need for conservation else we will see such unique species only in our memories.

Author:
BT Wild Art - Life is Safari. Enjoy it.
bhavesh thakkar photography 

Special Thanks to

Timir Mazumder (Nature Love's Club)

Saurbh Thakekar (Mumbai Traveler)

Vishnu Loltikar 

Jogi Prajapati (Mumbai Traveler)

Amol Gawli

Padmini Desai

Subhash Tarkar

Ramulu