Mumbai's Nature Photography Spots: Maharashtra Nature Park

     Here is a kind of informative Photoblog I would like to try out with an intent to share more details about the various 'Natural heaven' for photography in and around Mumbai.This is to share awareness about the locations, the general details and what can be expected in case any one plans for a Photowalk or just a general family walks.

     The first in the series of 'Mumbai's Nature Photography spots' I would like to cover the beautiful 'Mahim Nature park' or 'Maharashtra Nature park'. Located very close to the Mumbai's biggest slum, Dharavi and sandwiched between the once a Holy and mighty river turned the centre of debate and filth(thanks to our own Carefree nature and taken for granted attitude), Mithi River and Dharavi Depot road. The location can be accessed from either Bandra or Sion Station and later by a rickshaw or any Bus heading towards Dharavi depot or easily by the Western Expressway too.

     I had visited this place in the month of July, being in the initial phase of monsoon the over feel of the park was really refreshing.

     The ambiance of MNP(Mahim or Maharashtra Nature Park) is quite calming and pleasant and what I loved the most is that its free of unnecessary distractions like a family spending their reckless weekends or the ever-growing 'Lovebird' youths trying to find some privacy in the open spaces, which can be seen at any locations in and around Mumbai.The timings of the park is also comfortable with its starting timings being somewhere around 7/7:30a.m. (cant recall exact timings) to 3:30p.m. during weekend and the entry fee also seems decent with the facility to park your vehicle also available inside the park, but I would recommend using the mass transportation medium to reach as its easy to ply and have good frequency(both towards Bandra or Sion). The procedure for entering the park seems a bit lengthy where one has to take an entry ticket near the main gate and later head towards a beautiful circular(cylindrical) building where one has to share the entry ticket to get another ticket and some essential instructions are shared. 

     The whole MNP is not exactly a natural jungle but probably more of an open space turned into a natural heaven with 'planted' trees and plants(may be wrong), but the enclosed location and huge area helped it to have a variety of visitors in form of a vivid variety of butterflies, various insects and some potential migrating birds too(havent spotted them but have seen some posts) and also not to forget a whole range of reptiles.

     Below are the images about the nature park, most of them clicked by me, a few, not physically possible, are from the internet.

     I would like to Thank my colleague Lalitji for his curiosity to experiment with his new DSLR and learn a few tricks encouraged me to travel all the way to Bandra in the morning and enjoy the beautiful location.

The satellite view of the nature park

The Central Building

     The variety of butterflies I encountered at MNP, reach early and you shall have the luxury to catch few of them still sleepy and easier to frame.

Painted lady, my first encounter of it after a long time, though it wasnt the most healthy form of it

Tiny Grass blue seen nourishing on the nectar of the small flower

Palmfly, spotted near the entrance area of the NP. It tried its level best to evade me or my camera but eventually got few snaps of it after almost an hour.

Yet another view of it

Spotted this beauty fluttering around few plants at not settling down for more than a fraction of seconds, this behavior seemed a bit unique, only to realize that it was laying eggs on the host plants that were kept along the pathway

The close up of a freshly laid egg of the Lime butterfly

A beautiful Tawny Coaster seen lazily lying around in one of the area of the park

     The main central area had over 20-25 varieties of butterflies which had become more and more active as the day progressed and where a bit difficult to capture in frame due to the high sensitivity/alertness.

     The area also had a variety of flower, most of them being the planted/garden variety but that gave a pleasing visual and inn some areas also pleasant fragrance.

   

A beautiful flower on one of the tree.

Yet another beautiful flower

This particular one had a unique presence, almost as big as a rose flower it dispersed its beautiful smell all around it making the area near it really serene

 
 

Yet another white beauty, it seemed very delicate but very striking

Few beautiful variety of roses can be seen near the central area of the park

The weather, early days of monsoon, brought out the fresh green shade all around the park

The paved, yet, natural pathway. Loved that essence

But this view is what broke the ambiance with really strong filthy smell engorges you

     The park aslo showed us a huge variety of insects and reptiles, most of the reptiles were camera shy and kept themselves out of our reach

Here's an example of an elusive 'huge' rat snake, could have been over 6ft long

Some strange form of shield bug, was well camouflaged with the green shade of the leaf

Some nymphs/newly hatched bugs

A beautiful damselfly

A rare sight, a yellow crab spider with a male crabby on its back busy with their intimate moment

A busy bark mantis, all gorged up in self cleaning

An interesting Wasp, held itself underneath the leaf

A grasshopper nymph, luckily was patient enough to pose for a frame

A strange looking bug, when I tried to reach close to it, it squirted some liquid from its backend

A beautiful ant mimicking mantis

An interesting colony of ants, it had infested a whole branch of a tree

  

    Overall it was a good 3-4 hours spent in the MNP and the whole interaction with nature was fruitful enough to charge us up from the inner-self, despite the physical exertion and tiredness. Would love to visit this place once again during the monsoon and would like to explore few more areas of the park.

     DO share your thoughts on the blog and any suggestions to improve the blog.

Butterflies...The angels that I encountered

   Following are the butterflies I came across in the past few years, though the collection was not very extensive about a year back, but my latest weekend expeditions and the shift of interest from dedicated Bird photography to smaller to micro sized beauties all around the green patches of Mumbai, aided me to get a decently sized, ever growing, collection.
   The photographs posted in this blog are at random, some of them are based on when I had encountered them and also the quality of photographs improve in the later stages due to the consistent learnings, experience and feedback from really helpful mentors/peers/experts, etc. Special thanks to all of them, also for helping me with identifying the butterflies also to some of the books that I have been generally referring. Though the photographs and their corresponding names might not be correct, in few instances, kindly help me out by sharing the correct ids in the comments.
   So here goes the list of butterflies:

01. Common Evening Brown,
this chap entered our home one evening and very commonly have seen it at many house's, especially near any light source

The Dry season form of the same butterfly, great form of camouflage in the summers

Can you spot it? This one sat in front of me, hence I could see and frame it, but later when it flew off it was impossible for me to locate it along the area due to the dry leaves that had weathered off

02. Grey Pansy

03. Chocolate Pansy
Seen here feeding on bird dropping

Open wing of the Chocolate Pansy

04. Lemon Pansy

 

05. Peacock Pansy
Just once I came across this beauty, but unfortunately couldnt get a perfect specimen yet.

06. Blue Pansy
Spotted this rare beauty at Tungareshwar Wildlife sanctuary, a really swift flyer, but rarely saw it flying to high.

The Open wing view of the beauty

07. Tiny grass blue,
Very commonly spotted in the garden area

08. Oriental psyche/ Psycho
This one was spotted resting on tip of a flower and the lighting was very unique hence I tried to get this frame

The normal view of the beauty

09. Common jay
This beauty was captured long back while I was exploring a beautiful garden at Bangalore

Another view from Bangalore

A slightly weathered one spotted at society's garden

10. Tailed Jay
Usually a very swift and restless flier and very difficult subject to capture, but at this instance this green beauty was very much static and wasnt bothered by my presence at its close proximity

Another view of the beautiful Tailed jay

11. Blue tiger
This one in particular was a freshly emerged juvenile and was just getting ready to take off its first flight

12. Dark Blue tiger
A very similar butterfly as the blue tiger and generally seen along with the blue tigers, but has slightly darker marking and sharper pattern

13. Plain tiger
Yet another form of the tiger family

14. Striped tiger
Obvious differentiating factor being the prominent black veins seen on the wings of the beauty

 

Here's one seen mud puddling at a moist garden floor

15. Common crow butterfly

A male Common crow, with weathered wings

 

16. Painted lady,
A beautiful butterfly i had accidentally spotted at Dombivli's Reti bandar area

17. Indian Jezebel
One of the most vibrant butterflies, but unfortunately couldnt manage to get a live specimen. Here is one that turned out prey to the Crab spider

Finally got the live specimen just two days before publishing this blog, never thought it would be so rare to find.

18. Indian Wanderer
Closely resembling a Blue tiger, but havent came across many

This one was seen basking in the early morning sun's rays

19. Yellow orange tip
An open winged view of the beauty

A closed wing view of the beauty

20. Orange tip
Very similar to the Yellow orange tip, except for the logical 'yellow' colour

21. Great orange tip
A bigger variety of the tipped butterflies, generally a swift flier and difficult one to frame

22. Great eggfly
An open wing pose of the beauty

Close wing pose of the same beauty

23. Daniad eggfly

24. Common Bushbrown
this particular contrastfully beautiful one is the Wet Season form(WSF) of bushbrown

DSF of the same butterfly

25. Indian Common Sailer
THis particular one is very intriguing for me, even though the butterfly seems to be colourless on the outer side...

...the inner side of the butterfly is very vibrant.

26. Red Pierrot

While it opens up its wing it shows off the full black colour with rid tip

27. Common Pierrot

Open wing look of the angel

28. Striped Pierrot

29. Angled pierrot

30. Small arab salmon
Commonly seen in mangrove or marshy areas of Mumbai

This beauty was seen laying eggs at Bhandup pumping station

31. Rice swift
One of the member of skippers, probably the link between nocturnal(generally) moths and the beautifully vibrant butterflies

32. Gram blue butterfly

33. Lime butterfly
This creamish beauty was seen at the local garden

The inner side of the beauty

On this occasion the beauty was seen laying eggs on its host plant

34. Palmfly

35. Tawny coaster

36. Grass demon

37. Common grass yellow
This is one of the most commonly spotted butterfly in and around Mumbao

Another look at this beauty suckling on morning nector

38. Common Small flat

39. Indian palm bob

40. Conjoined Swift

41. Golden angle
This male showcases its bearded frontal area

42. Dark palm dart

43. Common gull

44. Indian Pioneer

45. Indian spot swordtail

 

46. Common mormon

47. Common Leopard

 

48. Zebra blue

49. Peablue

 

50. Common Castor

51. Common Emigrant
This particular one is a not so commonly sighted female, seen laying eggs on its host plant

Probably a male seen suckling off the water from the leaves lying around a river bank

52. Mottled Emigrant
Very similar to the Common Emigrant, but this was spotted at a completely dry area of the National park

53. Common Hedgeblue
This particular beauty, of the blue family, has a really flouroscent blue colour on its wings(when it opens up its wings and generally seen only during its flight or sun basking), for instance this particular one, spotted at Nagla Block, was really vibrant, but never let us capture the beautiful blue wings as it would either close off or fly off

54. Cornelian
This particular one was spotted while traversing the Lokhandwala Lake area

55. Plum Judy
This beautiful specimen was spotted at Nagla block and is a very restless one, it keeps on moving around from one leaf to another in a very graceful, dancing manner

56. Apefly
This small tiny beauty almost moved me for its sheer size and the beauty of it

A clearer view of the beauty

57. Sunbeam
Had encountered this beauty for the very first time at my native place but couldnt get good snap of it, later had spotted it at several occasions in National park but eventually got hold of one in the month of July

Almost could have got the beautiful spots on the inner side of the wings, unfortunately the national park's vehicle distracted it to fly off

58. Yamfly
The beauty of Nagla block, this beauty has been spotted at a particular sections, every time I visit Nagla block and is a very interesting subject to capture.

59. Blue Oakleaf
One of the most beautiful butterflies, but have been very elusive, in my case. They have a very bright and vibrant colour and design on the inner side of the wings, seen when they open up their wings, while the other side of the wings mimic a dried leaf.

The Closed wing form of the butterfly

Here is a weathered, female Blue Oakleaf laying an egg

60. Common Silverline
Yet another rarity of Mumbai, this was spotted at a open, lush green area of National park. The specialty of this beauty being that its tail and the design mimics as its front to confuse its predators

The intricate details like the silver coloured stripes simply looks mind blowing

61. Monkey puzzle
Yet another rarity of Mumbai, this was a lucky catch for us when we encountered a mating pair of Monkey puzzle

Another sighting of it at the same area of Nagla block

62. Indian/Grizzled Skipper
Yet another rarity of Mumbai, graced us while traversing the Nagla block

63. Forget me not
Yet another find of the Nagla section, couldnt get a clear one though

64. Baronet
Have frequently spotted them along the Tungareshwar and Nagla trails but not that commonly/regularly along the Sanjay Gandhi National park area.

 

65. Plains Cupid
A very commonly sighted garden butterfly, this one has been very interesting yet shy angel, here's one in that angelic pose that I have frequently seem them in

66. Common Baron
Unluckily I havent been able to capture this beauty while roaming along the various parts of the national park, but luckily have encountered it in some other neighboring areas, generally when I wasnt carrying my DSLR, so had to be satisfied with this Mobile shot of the beauty

67. Acacia Blue
Yet another rare beauty spotted yet again at Nagla trail. This beauty had taken a spot high up some plant and had to try my level best to get a clear shot of it

68. Indian branded Red eye
Though a very shy one and very sensitive to light, this one didnt fly off despite the flash fired off to get a clear shot of it. Earlier attempts had failed as most of them flew off

69. Indian Red flash
The rare beauty again spotted at the beautiful Nagla block

Here it is flashing off its bright red colour of its wings.

70. Tawny Rajah
One of the biggest and brightest(may be a bit smaller than the Blue Mormon) and also the most Hyperactive butterfly I ever encountered. This was a shot I could manage when I sat for a mere seconds before flying off and getting lost in the dense greenery of the Nagla block. Hope to get a better encounter of this mighty beauty