Hello friends, hope you are doing well. I know you people have been waiting for a long to see the blog, it is like a long time no see, let me apologize for keeping you waiting, due to some personal commitments that could not come up with the blog for a few months.
Having said that let me tell you that
today’s blog will definitely rock you and will make over for the long gap.
Today I am taking you to a tour of
the forest, which is only rich with biodiversity but highly rich with ancient
values. Without taking more time let me first update you on unknown facts
followed by the crazy story of the journey.
Uniqueness
This time I would like to update on the uniqueness of this forest prior to going directly to sightings, which will be
taken care of by the DSLR section.
Let me disclose the details that are
not known by many people and only treat this as a forest but it is much more than
that.
- Bandhavgarh National Park is a treasure trove for wildlife enthusiasts, history buffs, naturalists, and spiritualists
- Bandhavgarh is derived from the word Bandhu which means brother and Garh meaning fort has been a historically important place since the Treta Yuga
- The fort within the Bandhavgarh National Park was built by the legendary architects Nala and Neela at the request of Lord Rama and gifted to his brother Lakshmana
- Lakshmana is also called Bandhavdeesh here and a temple atop the hill is dedicated to him
- This fort located in the Tala region of the Bandhavgarh forest has been mentioned in Narada Pancharatra, Shiva Purana, Skanda Purana, and Valmiki’s Ramayana.
- The famous reclining Vishnu is located at the base of the fort and this water pond is frequented by tigers, leopards, and other wildlife. Lord Vishnu is resting on the seven-headed serpent Adishesha and hence called Sheshashaiya.
This is something unique about the forest
even I was not aware of till now so thought let me begin the blog with such
information, hope you liked it. Now let us see the madness of the trip and then
end with some lovely pictures
Craziness
I am using the term
craziness because the group of 16 people some known and some unknown to each
other jell so well that the trip ended on a crazy note.
To start with,
two kids deserve special mention, Asmi (around 6 years) and Nandini (around 11
years). Normally kids of such age give up on a couple of safaris, especially in
such a hot wealth of 45 degrees, but here enthusiasm of them motivated others,
hope their passion for nature and wildlife continues in the coming time as well.
Now move to
elders, the craziness of Chacha Bhatija because “Jo chacha hai wohi Bhatija hai
or jo Bhatija hai wo hi chacha hai or koi chacha hai hi nai" 😜😜😜
We wanted to
make seating arrangements in a particular manner that created some confusion
while entering the safari and the same was converted into drama and later on super
laughter. This added stress on Shreyas’s mind and he is still trying to remember
Jogi’s address, mostly he will visit Jogi's house also to cross-check, Jogi be
ready for it 😅😅
The third part
of the craziness is the sighting of tigers on every safari including the rare possibility of
male tigers. On this trip we hardly had to take an effort to find a tiger, at one
point head-on walk continued for 30 min, which is actually crazy, it is not
easy to find a tiger for such a long time. Now let me give you a small snapshot of
the sightings and then close it with fantastic pictures
Snapshot
Sanket, a couple of months back planned
the trip, he insisted on Bandhavgarh in spite he already had been there
recently. One thing does not plan is Pizza delivery but many people on the train end up eating it adding to his acidity 😂😂
Though we had a lot of food like yummy pav-bhaji
from Baxi still the question is Baju wale ko pizza Kaise Mila train me? With
pizza in mind, we reached Jabalpur and enjoyed Poha Jalebi which reduced the acidity
factor for Sanket. After enjoying local food at a couple of places we reached
Tiger’s Den resort and enjoyed the swimming pool to calm down Sanket’s Pizaadity
Now the time came to reach the forest
with a lot of expectations, Pizza nai Mila chalega, but tiger you just cannot
think like that. We had the best drivers with us hence expectations were high and
the same was delivered in less than 30 min by Santosh with the sighting of Tara in the waterhole the only word that came is “Chaapo” which means take as many pics
as you can.
After Tara, the time spent with Chota Bheem, again a small pond-type area, this is how the first safari rewarded us in the Khitoli zone
After Khitoli we did 2 Tala zone where
we had sightings of Chakradhara male (Bhagoda) and Jambhole male in different
safari.
Khitoli and Tala were promising so why Mughdhi
will remain behind, it also added flavor of Spotty cub, head-on walk and some
beautiful birds, sloth bear, etc. Back-to-back sightings were in place hence we
all were crazy, finally on the last trip again in the Khitoli zone Tara ended our
trip with a head-on walk
Sighting started by Santosh with Tara
and ended by Durgesh for my vehicle in a dramatic way. We all were searching for a tiger in pond type area but somehow Durgesh find out that the tiger is sitting
behind the grass and watching us, else we could have missed sighting by a very
close margin.
The lucky list
In total the count reached 10
different tigers and other sighting includes - Sloth bear, leopard, barking deer, wild
elephants, Indian gaur, monkeys, spotted deer, Brown Fish owl, jungle owlet,
spotted owlet, Indian Pitta, Peacock, Indian paradise flycatcher, Indian
Roller, Kingfisher, Crested serpent eagle, Jackal, Woodpecker, wooly neck stork, Lesser adjutant
stork and many more. Please visit and enjoy super sightings from my lens and
update me on your feedback.
I hope you liked this blog, keep
blessing me and keep motivating me to deliver unique stuff, do let me know your
feedback at btwildart@gmail.om
Vote of Thanks
Mumbai
Travellers and Team –
Many thanks Saurabh, Jogi, and Pathamesh for managing the tour so smoothly, you
guys are rocking, keep it up.
Co-Travelers
- 16 crazy people, Asmi and his dad
Abhijit, Nandini with Mom Gayatri, Sonia, John, Kishore Kokate, Amol, Kshipra,
Riya, Neeraj, Shreyas, Mihir, Saurabh, and at last Sanket, without you all it
was not possible to have such a lovely trip.
Drivers
and guides – Santosh,
Durgesh, Panditji, Vijay, and all other guides deserve special mention, keep rocking.
Rakesh
Prajapati – Wild card entry to vote of thanks, Rakesh Bhai is an artist and can
paint anything that you like. He helped me with an amazing painting of Sarus cranes
for my home. It is just out of the box and unmatched, looks like a real one.
Thank you once again.
Tiger’s
Den Resort - Management and Staff many
thanks for the lovely food and stay.
BT Wild Art
Dils se DSLR
 |
| Baby monkey |
 |
| Brown Fish Owl |
 |
| Jungle Owlet |
 |
| Jackal |
 |
| Indian Paradise Flycatcher |
 |
| Indian Roller |
 |
| Crested Serpent Eagle |
 |
| Indian Pitta |
 |
| Woodpecker |
 |
| Barking Deer |
 |
| Lesser adjutant stork |
 |
| Woolly-necked stork |
 |
| Kingfisher |
 |
| Sheshashaiya |
 |
| Painting by Rakeshji |
 |
| Crazy Gang |
