Bhigwan Trip Report

Dear friends hope all is well at your end, I am good as well. I know this time took a long to publish a story, my sincere apology for the same, but due to some personal and professional commitments unable to publish. But let me tell you today’s visit will compensate for a waiting time

Somehow got the opportunity to travel after a gap of 6 months, this is my favorite now because it offers something unique every time. Let me begin the story in the next section and take you to the world of grassland to understand why nature is so beautiful

The starter

As I said no trips planned and had no idea what I am going to do in the coming few months, suddenly got a message from Vishnu regarding Bhigwan. I was in double mind because I had done it a couple of times but I finally decided to join the group because I wanted a short break 

With no plans and expectations, I got ready to travel with another five people because we all are MT buddies (Mumbai Traveler), and trip arrangements as always done by MTs.  I had a fair idea that even without a sighting the trip will surely be memorable. This is how the unplanned trip started and was high on rewards and low on expectations

We started on Friday evening, reached Bhigwan around 10.30 pm, and got ready for the next day's early wake-up call. The target set to get Wolves which is the main attraction in Bhigwan, it is very difficult to get wolves compared to Tigers because places are rare where you get wolves so we wanted to catch up with The Bhediays” of the world at any cost.

The expectation suddenly went high when we started at around 5am but the session went completely blank, with no clicks at all, and evening scope is very rare so the day went without the wolf. However, we got some wonderful birds in the evening, which was a bit of relief for all of us. 

Now we only had the last chance on Sunday morning because we had to go back to Mumbai. Here the problem was either birds or wolf, if you do not get a wolf the scope of birding also go away due to the long distance between places. Meanwhile, our expectations increased as we got a surprise from Saurabh, who joined us on Saturday evening for a Sunday visit. Now the confidence level went further up because of the expert joining us at the right time.

Now the last visit started with fingers crossed, we had to search for 30 minutes initially but finally, the wolves arrived in a style, around six were there and four were very close to us giving all kinds of poses, playing and running around, this went on for an hour compensating for Saturday and made our trip into a huge success. In addition to this, we also enjoyed food, our trip will not end till the time we add food to it, we had a lovely homemade Maharashtrian flavor like Misal, Bhakri, Shevbhaji, etc and on the way Kathi roll (suggested by Esmail Sir) and Mastani (connect with Vishnu for recipe and details of Mastani) J. Now before we move to the DSLR section let me give you a snapshot of Wolf so that you understand why it is so special. 

The Bhediya

The Wolf in Hindi is known as Bhediya and Varu in Gujarati 

The Indian wolf is a subspecies of grey wolf that ranges from Southwest Asia to the Indian Subcontinent

Wolves are found on the open lands of India and they are able to survive in areas that are considered desert-like in nature, hence it is not easy to find them in every region and forest

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

An Indian wolf pack will spread themselves out when hunting Indian hares and various rodents, in contrast to coordinating when their target is the swift blackbuck antelope

lucky list

So the list stands like this – Montagu's harrier, Marsh harrier, Pallid harrier, Common Kestrel, Indian Roller, Bonelli's eagle, Grey francolin, Drongo, Yellow-wattled lapwing, Hoopoes, Shrike, Chinkara, Red avadavat

I hope you liked this blog, keep blessing 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 to Saurabh, Jogi and Pathamesh, Mayuresh for managing the tour so smoothly, you guys are rocking, keep it up.

Co-Travelers  - Esmail Sir, Dhruv, Gayatri, Vivek, Vishnu, Saurabh

Drivers/guides – Kundan your effort in finding Wolves is highly appreciated.

Home Stay  - Sandeep Nagre (Agni Pankh Flamingo Point), lovely food, and super arrangements for finding so many species 

BT Wild Art

                          DSLR  

Wolf

Peacock

Montagu's harrier

Common Kestrel

Montagu's harrier

Shrike

Yellow-wattled lapwing

Chinkara

Indian Roller 

Hoopoes

Red avadavat

 

Bhandhavgarh Trip Report

 
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. 

1.   Bandhavgarh National Park is a treasure trove for wildlife enthusiasts, history buffs, naturalists, and spiritualists
2.  Bandhavgarh is derived from the word Bandhu which means brother and Garh meaning fort has been a historically important place since the Treta Yuga
3. 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
4. Lakshmana is also called Bandhavdeesh here and a temple atop the hill is dedicated to him
5. 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.
6. 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