The Crocodile Park, Chennai

As a youngster, for one who always had a queer fascination of crocodiles, an opportunity to visit the Crocodile Park in Chennai was one not be missed. Nearly thirty kilometers outside, on the outskirts of Chennai (on the way to Mahabalipuram); the Madras Crocodile Bank Trust is located off the Bay of Bengal which can be visited any time through the year.

The park is similar to a zoo except the inhabitants primarily comprise of members of the ferocious reptilian family with a few other snakes as special exhibits. The intent of the park is not just to invite visitors but behind the scenes they also implement a breeding program and continual care of these creatures (one wouldn’t think they need much care, but humans with ability to destroy) is something which is also their primary agenda.

The nice thing about the park is a bunch of volunteers who are pretty much folks studying in colleges or working – essentially anyone who cares about nature can volunteer in the park imparting information and helping out wherever possible. I was mightily impressed by the volunteers and their sincerity and dedication is to be appreciated; one simple act of picking up a strewn plastic wrapper and putting it in the dustbin was all it took to make me an admirer of them.

Crocodiles are fascinating creatures. The park has multiple varieties of them from all over the world – Africa, Amazon, Eastern Europe and what-not. They have around 15-20 big pens housing varieties of crocodiles from 2-3 in some to 200-300s in others.

A croc basking in the sun

The muggers (or the Marsh Crocodile) are the most common found in India and they have some of the pens with huge numbers of muggers in them. All of them lying about, absolutely anywhere on top of each other, side-by-side in all corners of the pen make for a queasy sight. There were some 200-300 muggers in one of the pens.

Huge numbers of muggers lazing in the pen

The other pens are smaller housing gharials, alligators, the salt water crocodiles and many more such species about which I learnt a lot that day thanks to a very helpful guide.

They also house a pair of anacondas, a pair of rock pythons (with babies), giant turtles, cayman from the Amazon and other species of the reptile family. Also they have a provision to watch how crocs stay under water.

A cave from where the croc is visible under water

The biggest attraction (literally) is a 42 year old crocodile named Jaws-III who is the largest captive crocodile in India at 16 feet long and fairly heavy-weight too. This fella has a pen of his own because of his apparent aggression to allow any other crocodile to come near it; is fed once a week and I was fortunate enough to go on that day when his feeding took place. Apparently he was on a diet, and the zoo authorities also want him to get some exercise because of which his feeding involved tapping him on the head and forcing him to move about and get his food.

Jaws III, the largest captive crocodile in India

The park director, an Australian named Colin gave an excellent informative talk while Jaws III was being fed about his habits; and I felt a bit sorry for this middle aged beast which had been in captivity for a long time and possibly no inkling of what it was capable of. Still, the park is not like a usual zoo; and with their best efforts a lot of crocodiles are escaping harm from poachers and what-nots and absolute credit to them for doing a fabulous and thankless job.

Bharatpur Bird Sanctuary

Agra and Bharatpur while being in different states are just 60kms from each other and make for a good weekend trip. Three of us did just that and left for Agra from Delhi on Saturday (26^th) morning. This post is titled wrt Bharatpur because that is where the main focus of this post lies.

AGRA

We reached Agra in the midst of a traffic jam to reach Taj Mahal around 12 noon when it occurred to us – on account of being Republic Day; we weren’t the only ones who had the same idea of visiting Taj Mahal.

The queue to enter was minimum two-three hours long. Then we realized that there were other gates via which one could enter the premises however all queues were still long enough. After standing in one queue for an hour; and no likelihood of entering for another few hours; we entrusted the help of a “guide” who got us through somehow in half an hour thus enabling us to enter the Taj Mahal by 3pm.

The sight of Taj Mahal is a beautiful one; there is not much more that can be said here describing the beauty and architectural symmetry of Taj Mahal that has already not been said; hence I won’t attempt to do that. Suffice to say, in one of the pictures taken with us and the Taj Mahal in the background; the sun glint brightly enough on the beautiful white structure such that the camera completely missed the pure whiteness in the background with only us left in the picture.

Taj Mahal

The sight of Yamuna on the backdrop is a pleasing one especially as it seemed a bit clean there in contrast to what is visible from Delhi. We left the premises around 5pm – in a way glad to be a bit away from the tens of thousands of people who seemed to have thronged there. Since it was already late, we dropped Agra fort from our agenda and went off to Bharatpur.

BHARATPUR

It is a bit hard to explain the beauty and serenity that we enjoyed amidst the company of exquisite birds in the sanctuary. All that can be said is we planned to spend around 3-4 hours in the sanctuary, have a meal and go off to visit Fatehpur Sikri. We ended up (without realizing) spending eight hours in the sanctuary and eventually cancelling our Fatehpur plans without any regrets.

The bird sanctuary which spans across kilometers opens at 6.30am. Car and bikes are also allowed only up to a km or so inside the sanctuary. There are two modes of transport possible - one, the cycle rickshaw which is the preferred mode of transport for most travelers; the other being a handful of cycles available for rent which can be acquired if one reaches early enough. We were up early and were successful in acquiring cycles for ourselves (Rs 80 for 8 hours).

On such trips, a lot depends on the awareness, knowledge and sharpness of your guide. We were fortunate to get an excellent guide who took us off beaten paths with lesser humans. His sharpness was also superb as he was able to identify birds with naked eye which we realized only after looking through a pair of powerful binoculars (which also belonged to him).

We saw a number of birds which our guide identified for us; since all of us are amateurs in bird-watching we attempted to retain as much information as was imparted to us. Many of the birds were local residents and there were also many which were migratory birds from different parts of the globe. On a personal note, since I am an amateur; I tend to get as excited while spotting a beautiful peacock or parakeet or egret (which are also common in cities) as spotting any other rarer migratory species. Why condescend to not react for some just because they are more common!

A beautiful peacock offering a clear shot

A couple of loving parakeets

In the early morning mist, we spotted a number of peacocks and peahens which were just getting up (or rather down) from the trees where they were perched. As we went ahead on the beaten paths (where rickshaws couldn’t venture), we saw a number of other birds starting their day. A couple of owls – the spotted owl and the eagle owl were spotted by our guide which were most settling in for the day.

The spotted owl

The eagle owl

Huge number of birds graced us with their presence in and around the big water body that lies in the park. We saw a number of egrets, the grey heron, the night heron, the purple heron, the pond heron,  large numbers of Indian More Duck, the Comb Duck, the Black-Headed Ibis, the Bar Geese. These birds were present in large numbers around the water body.

The Grey Heron

The Comb Duck

Black headed Ibis

The Purple Heron

Pond Heron

Egret

We were also lucky to spot a few jackals and wild boars along with a number of sambhars and neelgai. However, jackals were too swift to be captured on camera; they mostly gave us a fleeting glance and scornfully walked into the bushes even before we could react.

A number of neelgai grazing near the water

We also spotted the Magpie Robin,  Coot, Hawk, lots of parakeets, eagles and other such birds.

Magpie Robin

Coot

Hawk

At one point, our guide asked us to get off the cycles and we walked into the jungle in search of pythons which are known to exist in numbers there. We walked off the tracks with a feeling of trepidation as to what if the python found us rather than us finding it. We went to a couple of porcupine holes known to the guide where the pythons are supposed to make themselves home; but both were empty. Whilst our quest was unsuccessful; even the idea of walking in the jungle hunting for a python on feet gave us a thrill and the closest probably any of us could ever get to Steve Irwin.

As the day wore on; we got onto the main track with lots of other people and saw hordes of other birds camped in huge numbers.

Pelicans, with all their grace and beauty and long beaks were visible in good numbers. We saw a number of Cormorants hanging by on the bushes drying themselves up after completing a fish catch. A bunch of unique looking snake-birds (Darter) were also visible with their snake-like heads hanging out of the water. A couple of turtles were spotted basking in the sunshine.

Pelicans

Cormorants (drying), egret (white), and snakebird (right)

Tortoise

Most of all, we saw hordes and hordes of Painted Storks sitting and making ridiculous noises. We saw around few hundreds of these birds directly within a span of 100 metres.

Hordes of Painted Storks

As we reflected on our day, we were delighted with our visit to Bharatpur and I could have easily sat for the entire day or more without any signs of boredom.

Reflections

PS: since my camera is a humble one, all the above pics are taken using the guide’s binoculars put ahead of the camera lens which allowed for better visibility and clarity.

Trip from Hyderabad to Mahabaleshwar

Mahabaleshwar is a quiet little hill-station 130kms off Pune. Six of us went over a long weekend (12-14 January) to Mahabaleshwar travelling to Pune by an overnight bus and hiring a Tavera therein for the whole three days.

The multiple attractions offered by this hill station are mountains and more mountains of the Western Ghats – some gigantic, some not so much; strawberries and lots of them; various pleasant view points from which thousands of photographs are clicked every day and so on.

After a three hour drive from Pune, we touched base in Mahabaleshwar around 1pm and went off to the MTDC resort where our stay was booked. The resort in itself gives a quaint country-side feeling with big rooms and damp ceilings and cool temperatures. The large area around the resort is full of trees and greenery and some small jungle area in the background with cottages which are inhabited by people like us on the inside and lots of monkeys on the outside who prance about their roofs all through the day.

Mahabaleshwar is placed such that there are multiple scenic points each of which have been given commercial names and there is a thriving industry around most of them. We spent the evening at a few such points each of which was pleasant in its own right.

At one of those points, we saw a lot of monkeys which were aggressively snatching ‘bhutta’ (corn) from various people – adults and kids alike. Somehow, they had developed a taste for the same and even if someone resisted, they would still demand the same and pester and harry the individual until he/she finally relented.

A monkey posing at Arthur point, Mahabaleshwar

There is a lake in Mahabaleshwar too, where we planned to go boating but eventually didn’t. We spent the evening near the lake area and had strawberry and cream which was absolutely delicious even in the cold weather.

The next day we went to Pratapgarh Fort which is 25 or so kms away. It was a nice drive and we finally reached there around 11. We had to climb our way up to the top which was tiring in the powerful heat but we finally made it and view from top was well worth the effort. We had a good Maharashtrian meal for lunch and made our way back to the resort.

Towards the evening, we decided to go to Tapola; another picturesque place around 30 kms from Mahabaleshwar off Koyna river. On reaching there, we found a vast lake (Shivsagar lake) on which boating was possible.

We went on the motor boat for an hour’s boating in between which the boatman also dropped us off on a small island for some time. If serenity ever needed to be defined through a picture, I would use the following to describe the same.

Sunset at Tapola

We got up early the next day to view the sunrise from another of those points (Wilson Point) which was another pleasant and enriching experience.

Sunrise from Wilson Point, Mahabaleshwar

We left back for Pune the next day stopping at Mapro Garden for various purchases like Strawberries etc and also had a good lunch there. We stopped by Table Top mountain in Panchgani briefly and also attempted to find out about Paragliding but it seems it had been stopped there due to some accident.

Thereafter we made our way to Pune and reached there towards the evening; post which we took a bus back to Hyderabad capping off a pleasant trip.

Visit to Sultanpur Bird Sanctuary - 2012

Link to a subsequent visit in 2013

Three of us went on an early morning exploratory trip to Sultanpur Bird Sanctuary located 60 kms from Delhi (towards Gurgaon). We left around 6 am and crossed Delhi at breakneck speed (courtesy the cab driver) and sped on our way towards Sultanpur. (Note: if you miss the small right turn to Farukkhabad, the road which leads to Sutanpur; the next u-turn is available after around 5 kms which implies 10kms of extra travel).

We reached the place around 7.30 am and went inside. The way Sultanpur is structured is there is a walking track around the circumference which would take a couple of hours or so to walk through. There is a big lake in between where most of the birds camp. In between there are a few paths which would lead you up to near the water to get a view of various water birds. On the circumference too, a bunch of birds are seen flying around frequently.

Sultanpur lake view

 

The walk around the perimeter is a very pleasant one on a cold wintry morning. There was scant human population there; we just saw around 10-15 people throughout. If one isn’t too interested in birds; just a morning walk in fresh air close to nearly undisturbed nature is worth the effort of visiting this place.

We walked through the circumference of the park and took a couple of hours to do the same. We saw a bunch of beautiful birds; sadly none of us being ornithologists, we could identify only a few of them. However most of the birds sadly sat right near the lake at a point which was still some distance away from the nearest path for humans. Well, personally if I were a bird, I would do exactly the same.

The following are what we saw (and could identify) in Sultanpur Bird Sanctuary–

• A few neelgai, cows and buffalos – we came across along the way

A male neelgai crossing the path ahead of us

• Four red-necked Sarus (Indian crane). Probably a family as they were moving together – two adults, and two younger ones.
• A big elegant swan (seen from a distance) – gave a nice feeling when it flew gracefully over the lake.
• Hordes of ducks
• Lots of Egrets – despite their commonality; I still find them fascinating and beautiful.
• A few Kingfishers – gloriously colorful bird
• The Black Drango – I don’t claim to be sure of this nomenclature
• A few Peacocks – even after seen them so many times; still love to see them whenever possible.

• Bright-green parakeets

• Two gangs of Sultanpur woodpeckers (10-15 members each) followed us for a fair distance whilst we were walking.
• A lethal kite (or a vulture – don’t know which – but some predator)
• A few sparrows – which reminded of how we used to see them frequently in cities in our childhood but are no longer visible that easily.
• Crows and pigeons – which while commonly visible in cities still deserve a mention.
• Colorful butterflies – nimble and swift they weaved their paths while flying around us
• Lots of red/black ants – which seemed to converge into ant-hills.

I haven’t been there in the afternoon or evening; but probably early mornings or evenings are the best time to visit a bird park. We had a pair of binoculars to be able to spot some of the distant birds; but our cameras weren’t powerful enough to get too many good shots.

Still for they are worth, more pictures are placed here.