Weekend Expedition...Exploring the unknown in the known...

     And so the story goes...

     Almost two and half years back(20/05/2010), just as a leisure activity on a weekend, I headed off early in the warm sunny morning along with a back pack filled with a camera, some water, a F.A.K., some stuff to munch upon,in case required, and my newly joined companion, my Firefox Fusion. Where did I head? To some unknown part of Baramati. For what? To capture things that others didnt notice. 

     So finally after several hours of cycling, exploring the open narrow roads through the vast open, dried off lands and capturing all that I could,ended off with a punctured tyre, walking the whole 10-12kms all through the terrain and heading right away till the Baramati's market area to fix the puncture. Though it seems to have ended in a tragic way, it left me with a half filled memory stick of amazing moments and amazing sights.(https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.396362674443.172439.763644443&type=1&l=3f9b12a775) Link to the album.

     So why am I sharing all this? Well, all this started off as a simple leisure activity, but it made into a challenge to bring out some surprising facts about some normal place, realizing the fact that weare not just limited to we, us or me, Its more than that and is meant to be for all not just the insane humans...It belonged to the nature and its beauties, it still belongs to them as much as it belongs to us.

     Down the line somehow I forgot this fact and took it as a challenge to fill up my hard disk and surely trying to improve my photography skills. Finally this past weekend's trip made me realize what I had kicked off and what my basic motto was 'Bring the unknown in the known' and spread the awareness. Thanks to Nilesh Bhanage(P.A.W.S., Dombivli) and his plan to go Bird Walking to a place which I had always been visiting very regularly, so regularly that I knew each and every knoock and corner of the place...well thats the bubble I was in, until this trip. 

     So finally on a chilly Sunday morning I headed off to meet up others, Nilesh and few interns from P.A.W.S., at the predecided spot and went off to the place for the bird walk. And what a surprise! Never thought, just a few more metres away lied the most beautiful sight. Huge flocks of migratory birds resting, feeding, flourishing... Before I start describing the place and hinting about the location...why not checkout the snaps that I could capture int he whole trip???

      Here's the snapshots:

Pity state...A Common Sandpiper among the waste
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The flight of a Little Cororant
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A rare sighting...a flock of Spoonbils
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Flying beauties...the migrants
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A Northern Pintail(L) a couple of Gadwall* and a plover
*not confirmed
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In flight the Northern shovelors
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Ready to take off...A northern Pintail
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A fellow passenger in the ferry
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A small beauty
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An unknown birdie...Probably a Prinia or wabler
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Ideal lighting and a mini beauty
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A Paddy pipit
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Mini Beauty...Kumud(Indica Tropical water Lily)
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A Fully blossomed Indica water lily
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Just about to open up...
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Fellow birders...Nilesh(R) and his intern

Shying behind the thorns
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The flight of a Median Egret
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Macro photography in progress...envy that 90mm Macro

A Kentish plover
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A distant Marsh Harrier, my first sighting in this place
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A Drongo
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A Drongo from the other side
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Another rare sighting...a mighty Osprey
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Probably a yellow throated sparrow???
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An Asian Pied Starling
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A vibrant beauty
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Froze it just there...A Common Kingfisher
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Hmm...Main nahi pose karunga/karungi
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Sitting on a mirror floor...a Pond Heron
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A Busy Carpenter bee...
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Another shot of the mamothish bee...
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Young explorers

A mud skipper
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Busy clicking...

little stints
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Time to fly off...A little cormorant
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just off...
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A common Redshank
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A very first record of Pied Avocet at this spot
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Time to fly off...notice the depth of mud...
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And now its off...
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Graceful flight
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A Northern Pintail
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Some differences I guess??? A Gadwall and a Pintail
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A spot billed duck in flight
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A new form of a bird...

Some sun bathing time...a little cormorant
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A bit disturbed water..
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So How are they? Any guesses as where this place is??? Well for the Dombivli-kars...Its Khadi or rather the other side of Khadi. For outsiders, this is a place in Reti Bandar road, the banks of Ulhas river, rather Ulhas Sewer. The worstly abused water reservoir thanks to the indiscriminate disposal of chemicals, sewage from neighbouring encroached hutments and ofcourse the inconsiderate Sand mining and last but not the least the Holy almighty himself in form of the idols discarded during Ganesh Chaturthi or Devi during the Durga pooja or any other form of "Divine festival". Well once u cross the toxic, stinking liquid body you reach a filth layered coast surprising housing huge flocks of migratory birds ranging from the ducks, geese, stilts, gulls and few very rare, atleast for me, variety of migratory birds along with a variety of raptors.
So the bird count was:

1. common sandpiper
2. little cormorant
3. spoonbil
4. northern shoveler
5. Spot billed duck
6. gadwall
7. Northern pintail
8. prinia
9. Ashy prinia
10. paddy pipit
11. Drongo
12. asian pied starling
13. median egret
14. plover
15. marsh harrier
16. osprey
17. Yellow throated sparrow
18. Common kingfisher
19. Indian Pond heron
20. Grey Heron
21. Little stint
22. Common Redshank
23. Pied Avocet
24. Yellow eyed babler
25. Sparrow
26. Black kite
27. Green bee eater
28. Egret
29. Gulls
30. brown headed gull
31. Indian robin

    So where do i go from here? Well after getting back and checking out with the collection of images from the other guys, who had joined in, there is a lot to explore and with just one spot I got so many new ones, imagine how much I could get at other potential points like the Saat pool, Bhopar village, in the deep extents of the village on the other side of the Khadi... And then there are also places like the Vasai salt pans, Sewri mud flats, some spot near Bhandup, the SNGP... and this is without the other side of Badlapur, like Matheran, Lonavala, etc. The list just goes on and on and on. And with the end of this year coming in pretty soon, shall have to make an elaborate plans for loads of Weekend expeditions for the 2013...anyone wanna join in???

Thank you for going through it patiently...Do share your thoughts on the Phlog and ways to improve it.

A Nature walk...Too Close to Mumbai!!!

     With the end of 2012 fast approaching...and probably also the end of the Life cycle on earth ;P... few hopes pop up... new aspirations creep up for doing something different, being a bit more better, in the year to come. 

    Well my last blog was all about the new changes and the corresponding evolution I expected to bring in to survive and suffice my hunger for photography. Though the start was good in form of a short stint at the so called Mumbai Bhraman. But the wheel didnt seriously rolled, atleast not as much as I had expected. One of the major reason being my comfort zone with the Almighty's sane creations was way more than the unpredictable and insane in-human humans...

     All my hopes for enjoying and rejuvenation seemed to be meagre. But then came a ray of hope in the form of a chat message from a good friend of mine. What was the message??? A group of people heading for a Bird Walk near Badlapur. There were three words that made me keen...specially the third and the last word...A Bird Walk at BADLAPUR??? Damn thats Great! Why so? For starters Badlapur is hardly half an hour train travel from my place, secondly its the place from where the actual nature trails start and thirdly, well any place where I can enjoy encountering nature and is located at close proximity to Mumbai is always a great news for me.

     So here was a Bird Walk arranged by a Group named Nisarg Bhraman(http://nisargabhramanindia.blogspot.in/), which started off in 2005 has been actively conducting treks, walks and other various forms of recreational activities. With all the contact details being shared off with me it hardly took any moment to enroll self for the event. And as usual few requests/ invites to few close friends...went down the drain.
     Finally on the 2nd of December, a Sunday, very early in the morning, we all headed off to the destination. Target was to get together at/near Badlapur station by 6:30a.m. and mind it "6:30 a.m." on a Sunday morning is tooooooooo early, especially when u have to spend half an hour train journey, I was moved to see some members traveling right from Dadar and beyond. So there we were, a group of 9 ppl, 6 from outside Badlapur, 3 guys from Badlapur , assembling at the seriously chillingly cold morning.

     With temperature dipping down to around 18°C, which later on fell down to 16°C, and mild foggy environment, the weather seemed awesomely fantastic and an ideal one to witness the migratory as well as the local birds. But before that we had to reach to the area intended for the Bird Walk, i.e., Barvi Dam. Located almost 15kms from Badlapur station, we had to hire a tumtum which took roughly half and hour to 45 mins travel through the decently cobbled village sorta road. The route being on the Murbad S.H. road, early morning is the ideal time to visit the spot as there is pretty low highway traffic, so the birds enjoy quite a serene environment and we also can enjoy the struggle to spot the feathered beauties.

 

 

     After reaching the final meeting point, just a few meters from the dam area, we were introduced to each other and so we came to know our guide/expert of the walk, Mr. Rajesh Sachdev, who has been actively  surveying and researching upon the local and migratory birds, insects and also other natural life forms and his knowledge was commendable. After a short briefing upon the essential stuffs of how to spot a bird, how to share the location of it and majorly how to share the description of the bird. After this we all headed off and straightaway were graced by the presence of a Rufous Treepie, Racket tailed drongo, Cuckoo, spotted Dove and so on. This gave us an idea of what lies ahead.

     Below are few of the examples of the visual delight we witnessed.

One of our colleagues for the day...accompanied us almost till half the way

Rufous Treepie
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Rufous Treepie
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Racket Tailed Drongo
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Spotted Dove
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Misty cold waterfall...coming off the dam
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One of the onlookers ;)

A Narcissist Indian Pond Heron???
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Sunbathing I.P.H.
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Focused I.P.H.
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Hyper active, Common Sandpiper
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Wired tailed Swallow
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Shikra
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Yellow throated Sparrow
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A beautiful flower
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Indian Black Wood Spider(As big as our palm)
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Indian Black Wood Spider
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Probably a Wolf spider...Check out its front fang type claws
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Another side of the beauty
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The wolfy
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Levitating in the air
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Indian Black wood Spider
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A parasitic plant, see the beautiful red flower??? Thats the creation of the parasitic plant
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Cicada type moth
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Probably a Yellow throated Sparrow
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A yellow Migrant on Yellowish Dried leaf
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Keeping a watchful eye while others discussed some essential info

Another brownish beauty trying to camouflage into the dried leaves
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Some interesting sights with beautiful lighting
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Another example of the same
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Shades of the same plant
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Thats Rajesh Sachdev on the extreme right, sharing some essential knowledge along with fellow members
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My favourite bird since the life in Baramati...Green Bee Eater(G.B.E.). Loved this frame as the lighting was on the opposite side yet great amount of details of the bird is captured
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Peeping thru the bushes...Not it but me...
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Slightly burnt out shot of the G.B.E
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Purple sunbird
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Yellow throated sparrow
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Well capturing good shots is not easy and in this trip our neck was the recipient of the torture...

Competition of the zooms...

Now thats called meditation...

One of the most difficult bird to spot and capture in frame...especially when its seated somewhere around 10-15m high and jumping around from one branch to other...Had to spend more than 15mins to get good shot A gold fronted Leafbird
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Another shot of the Leafbird
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Another back lit frame...
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The water flow from the Dam
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A tiger beetle...a nasty insect
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The carnivores insect
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Break time...Having Hot hot Wadapav

Some discussions too happening along with peet pooja

Walking and talking...Some essential knowledge sharing on the go

Crimson Dragonfly
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An Oriental Honey Buzzard...went quite a distance to capture it...
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Another I.B.W.S
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A better view of the Beauty
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Awesome creature+Interesting lighting= Amazing frame...one of my favourite
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Another one slightly diff angle
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Paparazzi behind the I.B.W.S., spot the spider on the extreme right top end of frame

From the other side
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The Golden glow
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A green lipped Wild orchid
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Black and white beauty...
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     So here are the pics of the natures beauties that we came across, actually we came across lots more, but I could successfully capture only these. But few things did come into the picture or realization after the trip...my 55-250 lens seriously falls short of zoom power in such instances as most of the birds were almost the size of a sparrow and capturing them, especially when they are perched way on top of a tree, the quality of the image turns to be a bit soft and after cropping the image seems to be overly blurred or grained. Secondly, in such a walk one needs to be well aware of what setting and angle to use to capture a pic with full and clear details of the bird, as in most of the cases the lighting was behind the bird, causing for a silhouette as a frame or seriously burned up frame. Getting the right image was sheerly the skill of the experienced.
     By the end of the day, for the trip, we had encountered/successfully spotted around 32 types of birds along with several insects, flowers and flowering plants and also some interesting orchids and parasitic plants. Overall it was great fun and the amount of satisfaction I got cannot be expressed in words. And this brought into light a new aspect for the City life...Mumbai is not so concrete jungle as I had imagined..there are places which will help me breathe, meditate and rejuvenate...all I need to do is search out by expanding my links and visiting such places and one such destination I am all pumped up to visit is the Sewri Mud Flats. I have always heard of it, saw amazing snaps related to this place but could never be at this place and hopefully by the end of this year I shall be able to give a visit and meet the most flamboyant migrants, The Flamingos.
     As far as this trip was concerned, special thanks to Pratima for sharing details about the group Nisarg Bhraman and introducing to Sameer Patel, Mr. Organizer for the event, Rajesh Sachdev for all forms of knowledge sharing he could provide in that limited time span of around 6-7 hours and all members who had joined in for the Bird Walk. It seriously made my day... Thanks once again...and special thanks to you all for patiently going through the whole blog.
     Finally the list of birds spotted:
1. Rufous Treepie

2. Black Drongo
3. Racket Tailed Drongo
4. Coppersmith Barbet
5. Asian Koel
6. House Crow
7. Large Billed Crow
8. Spotted Dove
9. Wire Tailed Swallow
10. Pond Heron
11. Common Sandpiper
12. Indian Cormorant
13. Greenish Leaf Warbler
14. Shikra
15. Yellow Throated Sparrow / Chestnut Shouldered Patronia
16. Loten's Sunbird - Male and Female
17. Great Tits
18. Golden Fonted Leafbird
19. Oriental White Eye
20. Purple Sunbird - Male
21. Red Whiskered Bu.bul
22. Green Bee Eater
23. Ashy Drongo
24. Black Shouldered Kite
25. Oriental Honey Buzzard
26. Jungle Babbler
27. White Throated Kingfisher
28. Warbler
29. Catle Egret
30. Plain Prinia
31. Brown Headed Barbet
32. Little Cormorant