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

Emerald Dove

Hello friends, wishing everyone a very happy Holi, may this festival of colors brings a lot of brightness to your life

So what do I offer today? The answer is simple something colorful, but finding out a particular bird or animal is not that simple, so to find out I always go back to memory lane which always gives me direction

Keeping Holi in mind I wanted to post something with bright colors and suddenly notice this lovy dovy bird which is perfect in terms of bright colors hence presenting you Emerald Dove   

Mera Lucky kabutar 

We all are familiar with Kabutar i. e. pigeon the most commonly found bird and disliked bird because of the irritating sound and for not being a clean creature but famous for being a Dakiya (messenger, I hope you remember the song “Kabutar Jaa Jaa Jaa…)

However, you know pigeon well but I am sure you are not aware of its close cousin Emerald Dove hence I started with highlighting the difference

Pigeons and doves belong to the same family of birds (Columbidae), which consists of more than 300 species of birds. They share similar features like thick and round bodies, short necks, and thin peaks, but doves are generally of a smaller stature while pigeons are often larger and stubbier

There is no difference between a pigeon and a dove in scientific nomenclature, but colloquial English tends to categorize them by size. Something called a dove is generally smaller than something called a pigeon, but that is not always the case. A common pigeon, for example, is called both a rock dove and a rock pigeon

With these basic details, let us go a bit in detail to know more about this colorful pigeon in the next section

The Characteristic

The common emerald dove is the state bird of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu

This bird is known with many names such as Asian emerald dove or grey-capped emerald dove, or green dove or green-winged pigeon

The name emerald comes from bright emerald green wings, apart from green it has many other colors such as the blackish tail, black and white bars, the head and underparts are dark vinous pink, fading to greyish on the lower belly. The eyes are dark brown, the bill bright red, and legs and feet rufous

This is a common species in tropical forests and similar dense wet woodlands, farms, and mangroves. It builds a scant stick nest in a tree up to five meters and lays two cream-colored eggs

They eat seeds and fruits of a wide variety of plants and are generally tame and approachable

Like other bird species, a female green-winged pigeon is called a hen, and the male green-winged pigeon is called a cock

Do visit the DSLR section to see the brightness of this bird, I hope you liked the blog, keep blessing and keep motivating me to deliver unique stuff, do let me know your feedback on btwildart@gmail.com

BT Wild Art

DSLR Section

 

Local pe Vocal Birding

 

Hello everyone, hope you all are doing well. The season of birding has already started and got great news all around which includes visits of birds in the city area as well. Since the impact of COVID is declining, we can grab this opportunity to visit local nature trails. I have started visiting nearby places in Mumbai and trust me the experience is wonderful. 

I know you got the hint for today’s topic, it is nothing but birding within Mumbai/Thane area. I would say this is nothing but local pe vocal, our PM’s vision is to promote locals to buy things similarly, I would like to extend this thought to promote and conserve wildlife/nature trails of our local area. 

We should be vocal about our local area to promote and conserve these places otherwise it will be silently be transferred into commercial/residential or luxury usages. Off let, I have observed disturbance to such places, people are targeting these places in name of development, but thanks to some vigilant people it is not that easy to destruct. It is like “Nazar Hati Durgatna Gati”. Considering the motive to save our lovely nature I am publishing today’s blog on local birding. 

Aaj ki Taza Khabar

After a long time got an opportunity to visit Bhandup Pumping, station (BPS) thanks to Mumbai Travelers who regularly arrange such nature trails. BPS is like home ground because the journey of nature got started with BPS around 7/8 years back. Visiting this place is always fun. 

Earlier this place was free of cost for visitors but since its recognition as a Flamingo sanctuary, the department has started charging nominal fees. It is a good move because it helps to control nuisance. 

Almost after 2 years, I could manage to visit this place and got an opportunity to meet old friends as well. The trail was fantastic with countless sightings guided by young leader Rajesh; we learned a lot from him and got to see a lot of species.

The lucky list I remember is as below 

Flamingo, Painted Stork, Spoonbills, Egret, Pond heron, Wood sandpiper, Common sandpiper, Stilt, Garganey duck, Kites, Marsh harrier, Greater coucal, Asian Koel, Eurasian golden oriole, Sunbirds, Long-tailed shrike, Rosy starling, Night Heron, Booted Warbler and many more.

This was update on BPS now let me update you on another local visit in the next section

Bhopar update 

Similar to BPS couple of weeks back I tried birding at Bhopar, which is located at Dombivali and offers wetland birds and opportunities for Raptors, here also we got the same wetland birds but added with Red Munia and Blue Throat which was a surprise factor. 

What more?

Therefore, to answer what more let me update you on places which you can easily plan nearby Mumbai.  

Green Park valley – Here last week rare bird “Eyebrowed thrush was recorded in addition to this you can find a lot of birds, a lovely place located at Belapur New Mumbai. 

T S Chanakya/Talawe wetland – Flamingo is a star here, the sanctuary in making I would say, apart from Flamingo this place offers Mongoose, King Fisher, Harrier, and all other wetland birds. Located at Seawoods new Mumbai.

Haji Malang - Place well known for raptors like eagle/Owls, etc, located near Kalyan 

Tansa lake - Place for rate bird Forest Owlet, located at Atgaon

 

Lonavala – For Amur Falcon and lesser kestrel 

SGNP – Sanjay Gandhi National Park Borivali, it is a National park so you can sight anything and everything here

More we evaluate more we can find, I would love to guide you in case you want to plan any local or any wildlife tour.
 

Once again, let me remind you to be “Local Pe Vocal”  keep blessing and keep motivating me to deliver unique stuff, do let me know your feedback on btwildart@gmail.com

BT Wild Art

DSLR Section

                                                                            Marsh Harrier

                                                                Long-Tailed Shrike

                Asian Koel Female

                        Asian Koel Male

                        Pond Heron 

                    Eurasian Golden Oriole

                        Wood Sandpiper 

                        Garganey Duck

                            Flamingo 

                            Spoonbill

                        Night Heron

                            Sunbird 

    

                    Blue Throat At Bhopar

                        Red Munia At Bhopar 

                     Stonechat