Mumbai's Nature Photography Spots: Nagla Block

     Continuing with the Nature photography spots of Mumbai, this post is about one of my favorite spot to spend the early morning, especially in the monsoon season. A pure treasure for macro lovers with a HUGE variety of butterflies, insects, flowers and loads and loads of caterpillars. It also houses range of reptiles and several birds too including the jewel of the jungle Oriental Dwarf Kingfisher, though I havent encountered it yet.

     Nagla block is an extension of Sanjay Gandhi national park but geographically separated off naturally with the Vasai Creek and artificially by the Ghodbunder road. Situated along the NH-8 this paradise is very well isolated from the hustle bustle of the urban jungle, apart from the noise off the highway traffic, especially the new age, show off, monster bikes speeding off the highway.

A Satellite view of Nagla area

Timings: 7:30a.m. to 6p.m.

(Have seen few people entering the trail early in the morning and paying for the ticket while returning)

Access:

- Reach till Fountain hotel via B.E.S.T./ T.M.M.T/N.M.M.T bus either from Thane or Borivali and walk towards the Vasai bridge and reach the destination(15-20 mins walk)
- Drive all the way towards the Vasai creek bridge and take the first right post the petrol pump, there is ample parking space available for 4 wheelers and 2 wheelers

Charges:

₹ 44 for single entry(updated from 2016)
₹ 133 for 4 wheeler parking(2015 rates)

     I have explored the area in almost all seasons, not very regular visits, but I have just enjoyed the occasional trips that I had, most of them during the months of July to September, one in winter and one in summer cum pre-monsoon. The location is so rich in nature's beauty that in one of the trips I could encounter 40+ varieties of butterflies(including 4 lifers for me), several moths, innumerable varieties of bugs and beetles and spiders. The area is also rich with a variety of snakes like vine snake, bronze-back and many more while also there has been sightings of chameleons too, unfortunately I havent been lucky to spot them in the expeditions I had. The sightings during the post winter/pre summer season was neither that disappointing with close to 30+ varieties of butterflies, even during the dry season, along with a variety of interesting insects and huge varieties of winged faunas like the Grey Hornbil, variety of barbets, orioles, leaf birds and many more rarely sighted birds.

     Following are few samples of the beauties I have encountered in the multiple trips, hope to have a few more till the end of the monsoon.

An Owlfly, a rare beauty generally spotted in this trail regularly

A Harvestman, an interesting form of arachnids commonly spotted along the trail

Close up shot of the beauty(Harvestman)

Baronet butterfly, commonly sighted along the Nagla trail

A mating pair of Grass Demon, also a regularly spotted beauty(not necessarily in mating form)

A rarity, Indian Skipper, made a rare appearance in July 2015

An interesting stick insect type mantis, Have sighted Boxer mantis alos in this area but the rarest and elusive one has been the Violin Mantis(Gongylus)

Probably a spittle bug, it acted dead when I tried to touch it

One of the master craft of the spittle bug

Katydid, this was a strange pose the Katydid took when we approached it for some frames

Parasite infested bug, a usual sight amongst the bugs, due to some reason most of the insects. Right from spiders to caterpillar have been infected with these parasites

One of the beautiful caterpillar with killer patterns

Another caterpillar beauty, Tussock Moth Caterpillar

Signature spider with a catch

Some interesting variety of moths

Master of camouflage, another Moth

Train of  Grasshopper nymphs

Intricacy of the nature

Master of disguise, a bug which seems like an ant

This is the most favourite flower for the insect, have spotted a variety of butterflies, moths and flies on it

Michelin boy,  Fruit piercing moth caterpillar

Huge grasshopper

Tiger beetle, love this beauty, but is highly active and sometimes a real pain to frame it.

Caught and angel, A spitting spider with Plum Judy

Caterpillar fiddling with water droplet

Mutli-coloured and vibrant Common Mime butterfly's caterpillar

Though I have a whole stock of images but couldnt share it in this blog, so kindly check the other photographs in the following link:

Nagla Recent set 

Earlier sets - 1 

Earlier sets - 2 

Earlier sets - 3 

Earlier sets - 4 

Earlier sets - 5 








Hope this Blog highlights the amount of beauties in store and enchants you to give it a visit. Do share your thoughts in the comments and also share your valuable feedback to improve the quality of the blog

Mumbai's Nature Photography Spots: Ovalekarwadi Butterfly Garden

     Summers are here and so comes the dilemma, 'What to do/Where to visit on weekends?'. Well for a keeda lover like me...the answer isnt a mall or a movie...ideally it would be some open spaces amongst the nature. But with the mercury hitting high thirties and the nuisance of the unethical and deliberate burning of the open forests by the locals, its difficult to find any macro subjects, atleast none that would be alive.

     So finally, after almost 4yrs since first planned to visit, I decided to check out the beautiful and interesting Butterfly garden that's set up just along the National park area, Ovalekarwadi Butterfly Garden.
     Located near the Ovala village/Ovala naka, few meters off from Ghodbunder highway, this unique facility is an amazing set up to visit, not only just for the photographers but also for those who are curious, want to know about the nature, butterflies, their lifecycle, flowers, etc. With the guidance of Mr. Rajendra Ovalekar, one gets all the details about the butterflies, bugs and the variety of host plants that's preferred by the variety of butterflies and also some essential awareness about the nature and how one can act responsibly for the betterment of nature. A very good set up for the curious toddlers who can witness the various stages of the butterflies lifecycles and also enjoy a good time amongst the calm and vibrant, well maintained garden area filled with a range of flowering plants and trees.
     Some essential details about the place
Location: Near Ovala naka/ Ovala signal
Timings: 8a.m. to 12:30 noon(Sundays only)
Entry fee: ₹100/person(Adult)

               ₹50/kid

2W and 4W Parking space available (Not sure about the charges)

How to reach:
Car: If coming from Borivali side, take a right, else left from Ovala naka signal and head straight for about 600m
Bus or Train: get down at Thane stn or Borivali stn and take any bus heading towards Borivali/ Thane, get off at Ovala naka bus stop and head towards a small road on to the left(if one is facing towards Borivali side on GB road)

A simple poster welcomes you into the amazing place

     Once in, one get some introduction session by the knowledgeable guide and later some interactive session with the live samples that are always growing around in the nature.

Visitors of all ages lining up to have a look at the sample of the Lifecycle, eggs-pupa-Butterfly

     Here are some samples of the beauties capture during my visit(Date Visited: 27th March, 2016). It was a hot day and I had reached around 9a.m. which meant most of the butterflies were up and hyper-active with the sun's heat, so though I had quite a lot of sightings, capturing them into a frame wasnt easy and hence ended up with very less butterfly shots. Shall start off with some beautiful flowers that was surrounded in the whole area:

A beautiful flower, seen in abundance

A simple yet very fragrant flower

Loved this beauty, the serene colour and the simple form of it

Very tiny flowers in an array, had velvety feel to it

Always my fav, this Krishnakamal/Passiflora, is not only very vibrant, but also huge, as compared with the normally seen passifloras

Any guesses for the id of this tiny flower? The next frame is the resultant once this flower goes thru a healthy process

A very rare sight in Mumbai, dont recall if I have seen it around in Mumbai. Its really astounding how a small flower turns such a huge fruit/nut. Check the flower on the top end of the frame

A butterfly egg, probably already hatched, spotted amongst the network of spider's web

A Plain tiger's Caterpillar? Spotted feeding on the Crown flower

Probably a freshly emerged Plain tiger butterfly, was fresh and vibrant and hardly moved despite the heat

Close up shot of the beauty

Spotted several Red pierrots along the entrance area, but this one, spotted near the intro area, it was posing as if its laying an egg, kept on moving along the plant in similar pose.

Finally got the Right frame, one of the most common butterflies, but could never frame one until now.
Inflight pose of Common Mime

The most beautiful Camouflaged angel, a Blue Oakleaf butterfly, couldnt manage to get a good frame with its wings opened up

The beauty of the day had to be this one, a lifer for me, a rare beauty, Silverstreak blue.
had a close encounter with it, but couldnt manage. After almost an hour long struggle to locate it, finally spotted it on a tip of the leaf high above.

Few other snaps of the interesting creature

This lovely bug landed onto this interesting location

This interesting beauty, hardly 5-6mm long, was infested with some parastie eggs.
ID: Ichneumon wasp cocoon(Thanks to Madhuri Madam for the ID)

This beauty was trying its level best to get onto a fellow photographer's shirt, loved the kinda transparent form of it

A busy weaver ant looking out for the food

     Well despite being a really hot and humid day and also that I had reached a bit late, I ended up spotting 25+ species of butterflies within an hour and half. A healthy count considering the seasonal cycle and what I loved about the place is the location, despite being few metres off the highway, its calm and fresh and a good way to spend some relaxing time and also would be interesting place for the toddlers to look around the interesting part of nature and learn new things.

Mumbai's Nature Photography Spots: Shilonda Trail, Sanjay Gandhi National Park

     Second in the series of various Nature Photography Spots around Mumbai, I would like to share one of the many interesting trails in Sanjay Gandhi National Park(SGNP). SGNP is a vast nature paradise right in the heart of Mumbai, rather can say a major part of the city of Mumbai is settled/encroached around it. Shall require lotsa blogs to just cover the essential and immense treasures of SGNP, but for this part shall share the beauty of Shilonda Trail. Situated about 2-2.5kms from the National park gate, this beautiful and well  protected /maintained trail is a good location for nature lovers with sighting for a variety of flower, insects(macro), birds etc.
     I, along with few close friends and fellow photographers, had visited this place in the month of October(post monsoon session). With the winter season just lurking in we had a good amount of sightings for a variety of insects feeding on a range of winter bloomers and some surprised visitors too. 
     Few details about visiting Shilonda Trail, since its a fenced off area, hence one cannot access the trail directly. One has to be get permissions from the officials, which can be availed from the NIC office, and along with the permissions, which includes paying entry fee for the trail, one has to go for guide too. Taking the service of a well trained and knowledgeable guide is really a thoughtful thing as they share quite a lot of valuable information about various sightings and also helps us to understand the importance of the nature trail and how to respect and maintain it.
 
Timings: 7:30a.m.-6p.m.(SGNP timings)
Charges: ₹44/person entry to SGNP(Updated in 2016)
              ₹75/person, Entry fee for Shilonda trail and Guide/Naturalist charges(As per October 2015 visit)

     Following are few of the frames clicked while heading towards the trail:

The monkey face
ID: Lynx spider, spotted just outside NIC gate

A beautiful, back lit frame of an Orb weaver along the Dahisar river bank

The Inhumane side of us...Some waste firecrackers dumped into the river

The land and the aerial ones...a monkey having a cautious eye at a herd of deer as well as some precious food dumped around

A blister beetle devouring a flower

Some candid shots of the macaque

A butterfly(not sure of ID, probably a glassy tiger) feeding on the flower's nectar

A beautiful bud at the entrance of the trail

Some essential info at the entrance of Shilonda

A beautiful Conjoined swift butterfly welcomed us to the trail

     Apart from the winged beauties there were a range of vibrant and unique flowers all along the trail. Not that great in ID-ing the flowers, would be just sharing the photographs without any names:

 

This particular one caught my attention, thought to be a tail of a snake, turned out to be a series of wasp's nest

A beautiful damselfly

The moment of the Day came in form of this tiny beauty, a Tiny Grass Jewel.
Despite being too tiny, the elegance in it was really amazing and locating it around in the muddy terrain was a big task

Here's my colleague and talented fellow photographer struggling to get the tiny Grass Jewel in frame

AN interesting Beef ly along the trail

A brilliant example of camouflage, a Blue Oakleaf, close wing

Slightly opened vibrant look of the Blue Oakleaf

'Niche koi hai?' an interesting pose of the tiny mantis nymph

Saw a variety of grasshoppers, in different colours. Here is one of the dry coloured Grasshopper

Another vibrant green Grasshopper

Yet another greener Grasshopper, the dry coloured one in front of it

A huge, slightly different mantis

Another closer look of the beauty

While we were busy capturing other life forms this huge beauty tried to sneak right from our front.

Always my fav, Lacewing fly's eggs

A beautiful, post monsoon frame of the Trail

The electric shock ant

Clinching to the metal, a garden lizard

A common pierrot graced us

The bearded one, a male Golden Angle basking its manly beard

Trying to gel in...A beautiful Crab spider

An interesting Spiny Orb weaver spider, busy rebuilding its web

A Six spotted crab spider, rarely seen this beauty

Face off with the crabby

Speaking of crabby, spotted this beauty along the end of the trail, near the dried river bank

     The official/restricted trail comes to an end by the rocky river bed, further of which seemed a bit too tough and extreme. Rested here for some time only to spot two beauties, probably male and female, Grey wagtails along the rocky bed and kept on looking for some prey along the shallow waters.

The grey wagtails

The contrast in the dead bed

     The return journey from the end of the trail was also interesting iwtht he sighting of a hyperactive Yellow Pansy, first sighting for me. Was a tough task capturing it as it kept on flying metres at a a stretch before settling down for hardly 2-3 seconds and heading off again. Would had been really disappointed if I couldnt get a frame of it, so finally captured one, closed wing shot of the beauty.

Another interesting sight of a Garden lizard enjoying a fresh catch, a grasshopper

The trail ended with a shot of a huge snake(missed framing it) and finally a Langur seated high up the tree near the BEST bus stop(inside SGNP)

     The trail ended with a really amazing finds and plenty of decent frames. It would be really interesting place to spend some time during the monsoon season with loads of potential for the macro beauties. And the best part of the trail's restricted access being no nuisance of noisy families and college romeos nor couples desperately finding some private space for the... So very less distractions and good amount for learning, practicing or improving one's photography skills and especially with the guidance of the naturalist/guide, a good dosage of knowledge too. One major issue faced during the trail was the time restriction, one is allowed to roam the terrain just for 2 hours, any more time, the guard comes in trying to get us out of the place. Another issue being we are supposed to stay along the trail and not allowed to move out f it into the surrounding wilderness...something that hampered us from getting even more variety of life.