Bhigwan the Big1- Trip report

 

Dear Friends hope you are enjoying the festival season, my best wishes to all of you for the upcoming festivals. While doing the celebration please ensure we continue to take precautions and keeping a distance from COVID.

Patience is Bitter but Its Fruit Is Sweet, this is the one-line story of this wonderful trip which came after a long break. The name of the sweet fruit is Bhigwan Trip, after a lot of discussion, cancellation, re-planning, re-scheduling somehow we made it.

Nature always offers unique aspects even though you visit the same place again, this is my second visit to the grassland, and believe me, the experience was totally different. With a lot of excitement let me update you on the success of this trip, come join me to experience one of the best parts of our state. 

The story begins

Like Sanjay of Mahabharata let me narrate every bit of it starting from planning. Due to deadly second wave travel again got impacted, all restriction, lock-down came in place again. After June/July things started coming back to normalization but forest visits were still on hold. Somewhere in July after my vaccination, we planned Chiplun Trip but due to a deadly flood, we had to cancel that. The situation was like bad luck behind all of us like never before, if a wave is in control then a flood will come in, there was no sense of relief, this was adding to the frustration. 

By the time it normalized the season ended in Chiplun, with very limited options left now; before I approach friends, I realized most of them were enjoying places like Goa, Ladakh, etc. August was also gone and frustration continued. In September, Deepa/Suma approached me for Bhigwan but again due to some reason it was not finalized though hope was still there. 

Somehow, the schedule matched for all of us and we started off to Bhigwan, the base plan was restricted to Bhigwan but the sweet reward of patience came with some magic (The magic is another part of the trip, I will explain the same in next blog, till the time you keep thinking about magic). 

Till now I narrated the story of the conversion of hope to reality, for the other side of the story let us reach the grassland and meet the lovely creatures after that you can visit the DSLR section to connect the story with the pictures. 

Go Green Grassland

Bhigwan offers grassland as well as wetland birds, the current season is for grassland birds, which includes migratory birds because of which we decided to go for grassland. The place is rich with god-gifted huge grasslands which attract migratory birds as well as animals like Fox, Wolf, Jackals, and Jungle Cat.

Due to the rainy season, it was lush green not only attracting this wildlife species but also provides equal opportunity to photographers and nature lovers with awesome greenery, which is now next to impossible in the city, I know you are eager to know more about what all we saw, let me explain the same one by one. 

Rock star Montagu

The sighting started with the deadly raptor “Montagu's Harrier,” at a time we saw around six. It is a migratory bird of prey of the harrier family. Its common name commemorates the British naturalist George Montagu.

Chalak Lomdi

This was the luckiest sighting ever, Lomdi (Fox) is known as the most clever animal and we always refer to the same as “Chalak /Chalbaz”. The fox is a somewhat nocturnal animal that prefers to move out in the dark also by nature it is a very shy animal and hence the sighting becomes extremely difficult and rare. You can find a tiger but finding a fox is not that easy hence this is called “Sweet Reward” in the true sense.

Jacobin cuckoo

Yet another super sighting in name of the cuckoo, most of us know the story of Chatak which is known as a bird with a beak on its head that waits for rains to quench its thirst. Jacobin Cuckoo is that Chatak bird, it is known as pied cuckoo or the pied crested cuckoo as well. It is partially migratory and in India, it has been considered a harbinger of the monsoon rains due to the timing of its arrival. 

And many more

The other attractions are – Shrike, Collared Dove, Chestnut-bellied sandgrouse, Rufous-tailed Lark, Black-shouldered kite, Bonelli's eagle, Rock Bush Quail, Little grebe, Mottled wood owl, Yellow-eyed babbler, Baya Weaver, Purple Heron, painted sandgrouse, Courser, Red Munia, etc….

Food Forever 

This part covered the story of sightings but the trip is incomplete without testy food, let me end the blog with an update on stay and food. 

All through the journey, we had very good food starting from the food court and restaurant at Saswad while coming back. 

We enjoyed homemade and local food a lot, Sandeep Nagre’s family made awesome food, which includes Pitlay, Thecha, Bakhari, Shev Bhaji, and Fish for Non-veggies. The taste was unmatched trust me you will not get such yummy local food at Hotel. Apart from this, we also enjoyed Misal Pav and Vada Usal at local Tapri at breakfast time.  

The success of the trip can be measured with not only sighting, the stay and food also play an important role. The homestay was nice with basic amenities with clean rooms.  

We return from Bhigwan on a memorable note; hope to visit again for things that we missed during this trip. Once again I am repeating, Magic is yet to come, keep waiting for the next part.

I hope you liked this blog, keep blessing me and keep motivating me to deliver unique stuff, do let me know your feedback on btwildart@gmail.om

Vote of Thanks

Agnipankh Flamingo Point – Sandeep Nagre (Owner) and family, thanks for making the trip memorable

Driver cum Guide  - Datta Bhau, thanks for the wonderful sighting 

Co-Travelers  - Deepa, and Suma thanks for this wonderful trip

Driver – Pathakji, thanks for driving safe throughout the journey  

BT Wild Art

DSLR Section

Montagu's Harrier (Male)

FOX

Jacobin Cuckoo

Mottled Wood Owl

Purple Heron

Bonelli's Eagle

Black-shouldered kite

Chestnut-bellied sandgrouse

Painted sandgrouse

Courser

Shrike

Yellow-eyed babbler

Rock Bush Quail

Rufous-tailed Lark

Baya weaver

Collared dove

Montagu's harrier (Male)

Montagu's harrier (Female)

Maharashtrian Thali

Misal Pav

Vada Usal