With forest area getting squeezed, for concrete, can we say we are subconsciously getting organized to leave in co-existence. Co-existence of human with the restricted wildlife movements. A place of co-existence where the migrant birds come for roosting and a place that we humans plan to go for relaxing.

Such is this place in Neul- Navi Mumbai, 9-10km from the place where I reside.

Every year thousands of flamingos, sea gull, plovers, sandpiper, waders etc come to the mangrove forest covering navi Mumbai. It’s a treat to see them close to city’s hustle and bustle. When its high tide in the sea this is when the flamingos marches inside this water body for roosting. The time is anytime during day/night/early morning/late evening. But what leaves me to surprise that they are now used to humans, living amongst them and amongst the filth that the humans create. Its and unsaid understanding that we have developed to share the same place, sharing the same resources as well.

Below are the few images to show such co-existence. Its gives me an assurance that yes- the wildlife shall continue to be within the city periphery but at the same time it leaves me in tears & blurred vision that what world are we leaving in and where we are not giving these birds what they want and also not giving the future generation the a right place too feel and see what the actual forest/nature is al about. Unfortunately it shall always be in co-existence for a developing country.

Living in flocks

Flamingos in flocks
Juvenile- doing what they do, filtering the algae

Doing what they do, filtering the algae

Living in filth Living in filth

Living in co-existence

Living with co-exsistence

Image- trying to show all three; migrant species, concrete, human  Image to show all 3 forms- migrant species, concrete and human

The future that is blurr

The future that is blurr
 

When someone experiences a tiger kill in jungle its thrilling but when someone sees a tiger kill involving both male and female it becomes a blessing. This is what I feel- That I have been blessed to witness this rare natural history moment. Why rare I shall explain in the below description.

SAFARI DAY 30^th April 2019

It was hot summer at Kanha and on 30^th April 2019 the heat intensified further. On the evening safari of 29^th April we got the news that in Mukki zone, a female tigress name CHOTTI MADA (who also had a 5 month old cub) had made a kill of chital (deer).  My next morning safari on 30^th April was also in Mukki zone and we decided to explore the same place as there would be a better chance of sighting of the tigress as she might venture out at nearby water body to cool herself during the process of finishing the kill.

We got ourselves placed and aligned on the ridge of the bridge amongst the crowd, below which was a small water body. We waited for about 15-20mins looking for some hint & alarm calls of her movement. There were intermittent deer calls. We were assuming that the mother and cub would be inside the dense foliage and the cub might be playing with her mother and it must be his movements that might be causing deer to raise the alarm call.

CHOTTI MADA female tigress arrives

Suddenly the intermittent alarms became continuous. There appears CHOTTI MADA out from the dense foliage. She waits for a minute, scans the area and takes her first step down the slope. Step by step she passes through the dry riverbed. En-route was a small hilltop. I waited there for her to reach the spot. That angel was perfect to capture an image where it felt like she has just popped out from the grassland. She kept walking towards the waterbed below the ridge, drank water and retreated.

Arrival of CHOTTI MADA CHOTTI MADA CHOTTI MADA CHOTTI MADA

CHOTTI MADA cub arrives

After walking a small distance she stopped and looked at the place from where she came out of the foliage. We assumed that she was calling her cub and after a minute the cub arrived. The cub came down and played with his mother for some time. Amidst their play surprisingly, both mother and cub started to look at the foliage from where both of them came out.

CHOTTI MADA cub CHOTTI MADA & CUB CHOTTI MADA & CUB

UMAR PANI male tiger arrival  

And there came his dad the mighty UMAR PANI MALE tiger. A huge male with flamboyant face emerged from the foliage and strolled towards the place where CHOTTI MADA & the cub were relaxing. Marching straight he walked to the water bed, drank some water and moved back towards the cub. The cub was in playful mood & went on to the small hilltop and into the foliage to hide. CHOTTI MADA on the other hand, also went up the hill inside the foliage, while UMAR PANI was arriving. While I was looking at all this, I was of the opinion that both the mother & cub are now gone through the foliage towards the kill. Hence I was also not keen for that moment to take any further images of the UMAR PANI male tiger as he was on the ground facing his side back towards us.

CHOTTI MADA & CUB Arrival of UMAR PANI MALE Arrival of UMAR PANI MALE

Moment of Kill – Umar Pani and Choti Mada teach the cub to hunt

The entire crowd around was also relaxed waiting for him to turn towards us and pose. Being a photographer, I was keenly observing him through my lens; lest I miss any moment. But to my surprise, Umar Pani suddenly changed his position, ears in alert position, tail wagging consistently and firmly staring at one corner of the foliage. I said to my drive Mr. Ramprasad that “he is stalking”. No one believed me as they said sir kal hi to kill kiya hai. And that moment I felt that they must be right because it’s the only family of two (CHOTTI MADA & cub) to relish on the 29^th April deer kill (usually back to back kill happens when there are more than 2 cubs as the kill size is not sufficient for all). But he continued to stalk. And suddenly stood up and took a jump inside the foliage. I couldn’t see anything just the noise of the foliage along the movement of the tiger. And the noise progressed to be even louder with noise of fast moving and running tiger. For a moment we all thought that there must have been a fight between the male and female tigress over the cub (male tigers tend to kill his own cub if he sees him as a threat to his existence/territory. And also while he was stalking he was looking along the same direction where the cub jumped and took a hide). Suddenly out of the foliage a tiger jumped or rather fell and also the second tiger jumped. It went all dusty and I couldn’t figure out what was happening. As the dust settled in about a few seconds, we could see a tiger on the kill and the other tiger looking at them. On closer look through lens we saw that CHOTTI MADA had a female barasingha in her jaws and UMAR PANI male was watching her. UMAR PANI was present till themale barasingha took her last breath and later moved away from that place. CHOTTI MADA took the kill inside the foliage and UMAR PANI kept on walking to find to a place to take rest.

What was surprising was that we were still thinking as to why did they hunt as it wasn’t even 24hrs that the last kill was made. On further discussion we arrived at a very interesting perspective. The kill was actually done to teach and train the little cub on how to do a kill. I sequentially went into the flashback of events as to- how close was the female barasingha to male tiger (and she wasn’t aware of their presence), looking at the distance of the kill and presence of the cub, the male tiger stalked and approached for kill, the barasingha went running to the side ways unfortunately where CHOTTI MADA was present and even CHOTTI MADA played her role and helped UMAR PANI to execute the kill in front of the cub.

RARITY experienced

At end for me it was to witness the most blessed natural history moment where both male and female tiger were present during the hunt and that too to make the cub learn how a hunt is to be approached and killed. I think there was a lot to learn for both the 5 month old cub and me.

UMAR PANI & CHOTTI MADA on Kill UMAR PANI & CHOTTI MADA on Kill UMAR PANI & CHOTTI MADA on Kill UMAR PANI & CHOTTI MADA on Kill

Nitin Joshi Velavadar Blackbucks

Alert-

One of my most fascinating visit to Velavadar National Park. How nature creates the brain to react to danger, be it for social animals like human who has got good IQ, or be it for other animals who has different ways of expression.

One such way of expressing the danger and protect the troop which I witnessed in Velavadar cant be forgotten. On seeing the threat from predator, the male blackbucks starts hopping & jumping, giving a alert sign to all the troop members. This was when, one such herd (male & female) where all males got toghether and females came together standing behind the male. Forming the wall and keeping an eye on the predator, the male balckbucks keep giving the alert sign to the troops till they are out of danger.

Nitin Joshi Velavadar Blackbucks

The behaviour can be understood but how it has been created only mother nature knows it well.

White Bellied Heron

It was that time of year again! With the beautiful memories still fresh from my 2014 visit to the Paradise of Indian forests; I was impatiently looking forward to visit Namdapha once again. It did not feel like a year had passed since my last visit there. I could still smell the woods, visualize the trails, habitat and mothers nature’s intriguing progeny

This, India’s only rain forest is one of the most difficult places for photography. It has long difficult trails, mountain trekking and river crossings. These efforts are heightened with the fact that photographers have to carry their own accessories consisting of heavy lenses, camera & tripod a combined weight of a whopping approx. 14 kg. It definitely calls for mental strength and is a test of physical endurance. I left for this expedition on 23^rd Dec 2015. We reached 25 miles on 26^th Dec 2015 and planned to reach 27 miles by next evening. With every passing minute, I could feel our journey taking me closer to Namdapha. On 27^th we had already walked 6 miles (9.6km) through some very tough muddy trails towards Vijaynagar where Mother Nature was kind to premier the beauty in the form of BEAUTIFUL NUTHATCH.

It was a long trek and when walking through the trails towards 27^th mile, tough was getting tougher. As a group, we had aimed to reach FIRMBASE and that’s what kept us going strong against all odds. It was getting pretty tough though. Our group members were injured with feet slipping over the rocky river bed. But It was our determination that kept us motivated all the time to move ahead. Most difficult was the final 1-mile stretch of mountain trekking. Ascend was as steep as it could get. It tested our grit and drained us completely. But all this effort was worth is with FIRMBASE – a spot of scenic beauty where the long stretch of land meets the mountain & mountain meets the sky.

We heaved a sigh a relief as we managed to complete the treacherous climb of 1-mile climb up the hill and were happy to start our descend down the hill. Surprisingly, descend was much tougher than the ascend. As we kept walking down the hill, soft sounds of river bed became evident. The sweet notes were such a relief, especially after the long and difficult trail. River bed sounds grew stronger as we approached 10 feet tall grassland. We had to skim through the 10 feet tall grasslands to reach the end of 27^th mile. Bidyut, our co-ordinator was the 1^st to emerge from grassland second was Sagar and third was I. The moment I came out Bidyut called out loudly, “Sir, White bellied heron!”. That was the moment of truth for me - I witnessed yet another beautiful and rare creation of Mother Nature. Flying high in open above the river bed surrounded by mountains with the golden light falling on its white belly the bird looked beautiful –truly a magical sight.

I started to run with all the energy I could gather and tried to compose the frame of that rare beauty in flight. Uuuuffffff I and sagar who were ahead of all the group members started to capture as many frames as we could and then cuddled and embraced each other like is this what we lived for……can god be so kind to us, is mother nature really looking at us as her child?....was this the gift she wanted to give us after testing us mentally and physically. This was the moment of TRUTH for me. Which I shall cherish all my life till I die.

Such is the beauty of the rare bird and we humans are responsible for their such a steep decline in numbers because of the habitat loss.

This heron is classified as Critically Endangered because it has an extremely small and rapidly declining population. This decline is projected to increase in the near future as a result of the loss and degradation of lowland forest and wetlands, and through direct exploitation and disturbance.

Threats

The main threats are presumed to be widespread loss, degradation and disturbance of forest and wetlands. The species is also very sensitive to human disturbance, for example it took 48 hours for a pair to return to their breeding site following a disturbance (Mondal and Maheswaran 2014). Wetlands have become degraded as a result of pollution, rapid growth of aquatic vegetation, and the over-exploitation of resources. Increasing disturbance and habitat degradation from settlement, conversion to agriculture, harvesting of wetland resources and, more locally, poaching are thought to present significant threats in key protected areas (e.g. Namdapha National Park) in north-east India, Bhutan and Myanmar (W. Duckworth in litt. 2006). Natural forest fires have destroyed nests in Bhutan. In Bhutan, hydroelectric power developments and road improvements have resulted in significant habitat degradation. Rivers act as busy transport routes for the human population, exacerbating disturbance of this species (W. Duckworth in litt. 2006, D. Wilson in litt. 2006).

Ardea insignis is known from the eastern Himalayan foothills in Bhutan and north-east India to the hills of Bangladesh, north Myanmar and, historically at least, across west and central Myanmar (BirdLife International 2001). The first confirmed record of this species in China was made in 2014 in Lushui County, Yunnan Province on the border with Myanmar (S. Chan in litt. 2014). It may also occur in south-east Tibet, China, but is now extinct in Nepal. Birds visit the Brahmaputra lowlands in winter. Although historical reports suggest it was previously common in Myanmar, it has evidently declined throughout its range given the paucity of recent records. Most of the few recent records come from five or six sites in Assam and Arunachal Pradesh, India, one or two sites in Bhutan, and parts of Myanmar. In Bhutan, there is a small population of 30 known individuals (with six juveniles) as of July 2007 (Pradhan 2007), with the total national population unlikely to exceed 50 individuals (Pradhan et al. 2007). The birds were observed along the Phochu, confluence of Phochu-Mochu, Punatsangchhu, Kamechu (Digchu), Zawa, Ngagshina and Burichu confluence (Pradhan 2007). Six active nests were recorded in Bhutan in 2007, two from a new site, and by 26 July 2007 they held six chicks in total. Due to natural forest fires, three nests were abandoned. A further three active nests with five chicks were recorded in 2009, although only three chicks remained on a subsequent visit (Anon 2009). Six breeding sites from two rivers of central Bhutan have been recorded, and the eastern part of the country has not been thoroughly surveyed (Pradhan 2007). The species has also been reported from the Thim Chhu, Lungtenphu (C. Feijen in litt. 2009). A massive hydroelectric scheme may have recently caused its expiration from the Sunkosh Valley (K. D. Bishop in litt. 2012). Two adult birds were recorded in Phibsoo Wildlife Sanctuary, Sarpang in February 2014 (Anon. 2014). The annual survey of White-bellied Heron in Bhutan reported 22 birds in 2014, an increase from 2013 when 20 birds were recorded (Anon. 2014).

Population justification

Though a complete population census is yet to be conducted, the current population size is thought to be best placed in the band 50-249 mature individuals (D. Wilson and J. Eames in litt. 2006). This equates to 75-374 individuals in total, rounded here to 70-400 individuals.

Reference- http://www.birdlife.org/datazone/speciesfactsheet.php?id=3723

White Bellied Heron

It was in the month of March’14 that I visited to Jim Corbett National park with my wife. It was a long awaited decision since the time I bought a DSLR and explored it enough to operate on manual modes. Jim Corbett was a natural first destination – my much dreamt about wildlife destination.

I went there with absolute no expectations. I simply wanted to experience nature, be blessed and to witness the beautiful creations. But seemed like Mother Nature had decided to bless me in my first time – beginners luck as it is commonly known in wildlife photography language. The jungle did not send me back empty handed.

The day of getting blessed by the nature-

A night before the D-day my good friend or rather brother (as he is dear to my heart, and a fantastic wildlife photographer) was residing in the room which was close to the boundary of the grasslands. That day in morning when we met he said that he heard a lot calls coming from of grassland. People applied their mind majorly driven by Sagar and the driver that the cubs would be still in the grassland. We were the first to leave the FRH gate and went straight to grassland and patiently waited. It was a misty morning. I checked my frame settings, did camera adjustments and was all set. Trust me it was magical dawn. The yellow golden light of early hours, the yellow-green meadows on both the side of the trail, with the blue background of Ramganga river and mountains. Although a first time visitor, it was not difficult for me to imagine that this is a perfect setting - a dream frame. Time passed by, 10min-15mins-25mins the wait added on to my eagerness to see that majestic beauty in this scenic background. 25-30mins passed by, Waseem-the drive said lets go to Thandi Sadak (its on the other side of the grassland) as it might have happened that the cubs would have crossed and went over to the other side. I stayed quiet not saying a thing. Sagar said let’s wait here for some more time. And while the whispering was on, suddenly the driver called -  Sir….TIGER…!!!

It was a speechless moment. The tiger came out of the grassland and walked about a yard. He was a young cub (maybe 1.2-3 year old). He stood there, observed us eagerly for a moment and then vanished into the grassland.

It was unbelievable. He looked directly at us. I felt as if the tiger was directly looking into my eyes. The royal walk of the cub coming out of the grassland and with ease that he stood there was nothing less than a king standing with pride. I was excited, slow to start with the camera, but managed to take 8 frames (4fps, with 2sec burst), and managed to get few good frames. Even though new in the field I could sense that 1) 2 sec burst and after that tiger left 2) my delayed response after few seconds (say 2-3 sec) I calculated that the tiger was visible only for 4-5 seconds. This 4-5 seconds changed the whole scene and I got what I shall cherish all my life.

What I can only say is that- Blessings can’t be seen and felt, it can only be experienced. I feel my perseverance for this long awaited visit to Corbett was a blessing showered on me by Mother Nature.