Slice of Sunderbans : A day trip to Piyali

     Paradise !!! I'd better  get one. Hell, I need one. Ohh, just dreaming..or am I?

   It was the summer of 2015. Some of my friends gathered around to have a weekend dinner at a restaurant,have a chat,and spend some time together after a long gap. It was Sunday the day after. The ghost of birding was on my mind full fledged, so I made a proposal to them, to go to Piyali island the next day, and they gladly accepted. So, the bookings were made for a day at the resthouse. We were to start the journey very early next day.

   We were supposed to reach there by train. The fabled Namkhana local is like a myth with the locals, and for those people who are not daily passengers, there are horror stories, like it is so crowded inside the compartment, people get lost....of course those are rumours, duh..how hard can it get! Besides, it was a Sunday. 

   

   Believe me, not all rumours are urban legends. Some are true, scarily true indeed. Hell with Sunday, the train was packed like a travel suitcase, like when pack stuff for a holiday travel, as if we are never coming back, try to cram every corner of the suitcase with things we carry just for mental peace. We boarded the train, selected a place  for ourselves, and magically, our feet were nailed to those places for almost two hours, we never moved any of our body parts except blinking. Our destination came at last. And we were shoved out of the compartment, and by God's grace all our limbs were with us. After a little refreshment we went to look for further transport.

   From there, we had to board another vehicle to Kella, local name for Piyali; it was a sunny day, with the temperature on the fiery side of the scale,which make your skin crispy,without burning it. Inside the vehicle, it was somewhat on the cooler side, where you felt soggy, just short of crisp, like underdone french fries. And we were to make another two hour journey in that, I knew, we'll look like slow roasted chickens at the end of that. On a sweaty note,it started.

the happy campers, inside the oven

  The journey ended, as it began. We passed through unknown roads, crossed many villages and markets..and finally reached here.

the main sluice gate, our destiny awaits on the other side

the view of the right side of the river from over the gate

the view of the left side of the river

   And we proceeded forward over the bridge to our much awaited destiny, after everyone one got at least on pic of themselves for the social media, well you cannot blame them, being in an exotic place and looking like tandoori chicken is not going to work on Facebook, unless you really are a tandoori chicken and being served on a designer plate in some island in Thailand. We, proceeded, towards the main gate, and..it was locked,  from the inside. Perhaps, the caretaker had forgotten all about us. We started shouting, then clanging and banging on the gate, like all the civilized people do when trying to get someone's attention, but, all in vain. The caretaker didn't notice at all. Then someone thought about making a call to the booking office, and let them call the caretaker, and it worked. See, I have intelligent friends. 

    We got into our room, all of us together, in a single room. It had everything, beds, windows, functioning toilet (it was clean too), a balcony facing the island, a fan and a light...well, almost everything, except electricity. And getting fed up with our luck, we pretended that we knew nothing about fans, as if, it never existed. Then after a short break, we got out to explore the island. The island is not much big, with areas cordoned off for wanderers. It has several large water bodies surrounded by trees, on the inner side. The outer side is like mini mangroves, surrounded by plants one usually finds in the Sunderbans.

the mangroves

another view of the mangroves

    The path among the trees stretches far enough to stimulate your imagination to the point of almost reality, and then, you reach the boundary. We were all disappointed when our stroll finished, it yielded almost nothing from a birder's point of view,  so, I started clicking random pics of the wooded area.

path towards the left side of the island, more like a garden

a mangrove flower

 

pond heron

   It was burning hot outside, and we decided to be inside the room for some time and then go for a walk again.

   After half an hour or so, I decided to go out, but my friends were too tired to get grilled again and stayed inside. As I was walking along the forested pathway, I felt like being watched. I was alone, and my eyes were scanning the canopies for movement, and nothing moved for a few moments. Then , this guy came out in the open.

spotted owlet

talk about being watched, it is watching

   This was my first experience with owls of any kind. I thought they were nocturnal, I read in books.Guess they didn't read those same books. I thought about finding a shade and watching this guy for a little time, so I did. Guess what, the owl had the same idea of following me. It came out on an open perch to see me clearly. It was not at all intimidated by my presence.

no fear in those eyes

    I decided to give it a break and move on further, to search for other birds. I found a green bee eater basking in the sunshine. It's green feathers gleaming in the golden rays. It seemed beautiful, it was beautiful. It is very common, but I never got a better shot of it, so....here it is.

green bee eater on open branch

and another, on a neem tree, green on green

   After a little more searching, I came upon another jewel of the mangrove, a collared kingfisher. I have seen the pics that were posted on Facebook, but never expected to find it that quick, and as luck would have it, this guy never came out of the shadows, hence resulting in a pic not as good as I expected.

collared kingfisher

  It had brilliantly contrasting colors of turquoise blue and pure white, but being in the shadow just didn't do justice to it. Anyways, it was almost time for lunch. I was coming back to the room, when suddenly some movement caught my eye, and I froze instantly. And there they were.

chestnut tailed sterling

  Another lifer, wow!!!!!!! But they never bothered to pose for me. Silly birds, all they want is to eat, and sleep and make babies and struggle for existence, that's it. How can they understand the hardship of a photographer who braved the Namkhana local in the morning just to get good photos for Facebook. They are silly. So, they flew away leaving me alone. But, as I was about to enter the building, I spotted them again, on a tamarind tree, just beside the gate. And this time they obliged with a few better shots..

behind the clutter

finally one in better position

   Some day, right.. And, with all that excitement I was totally dehydrated, and needed to refuel. We had lunch, which was delicious and feeling. That called for a little nap, for the others. I had to oblige to the nature's call and find my paradise, so, out of the gate, once again. After wandering for a while I came across the owl again, or maybe someone of the same family.

they all look alike

    It gave me a disgusted look and flew away to mind it's own business, maybe it had luncheon appointment to keep.

    I kept my eyes peeled and looked for movements on the high branches. Paradise is towards the sky, right!!! That's why I almost missed it. Something was moving inside the low bushes beside the pathways. i never expected to find it there, but, there it was...right in front of my eyes, all the time. I simply overlooked it, because of knowing nothing about it. Then I thought, I can always regret later, it's time for action. And I clicked, and clicked, and clicked..the paradise fly catcher. I found my own paradise.

paradise fly catcher, rufous morph

with food

after lunch

flaunting that long tail

    Getting too excited and clicking more than a hundred photos or so, I finally realised that I had to go through all those pics and sort them. That is one of the most boring job after a day of outing, but, I thought, it can be managed. The day was coming to an end, and it was time to head home. I thought of getting some rest before the journey.

    But, someone decided to make an appearance. And, being all excited, I almost forgot about it. And almost forgot to press the shutter. This is the only shot I got of this beauty. It was driven away by the other brown one, guess it was jealous.

paradise fly catcher(white morph)

    The return journey was not much different, and being too tired, I almost didn't notice anything on the way, except that we parked ourselves on the roof of the car. We got seats on the train. It not as bad as the morning had begun. The day was well spent with friends in the lap of nature. We all hoped to get back there during the winter again. It's been almost two years, but I never quite gathered my courage to board that fabled local train again. But, very soon, I may gather some of it and get on my way; you never know when nature calls you, when it comes, you just oblige. Until then, Happy reading.

A day with the Dinosaurs: treasures of Bhitarkanika

  Shortly after my new found interest in birding, I switched to a Canon SX60 bridge camera and started scanning the internet about places with variety of bird species. there were many suggestions, and the name Bhitarkanika in Orissa stuck in mind. It's a paradise for birdwatchers according to the internet, and housed some of the biggest crocodiles found, with the largest being close to 17 feet. So, we decided to give it a go.

    We boarded the train from Howrah on 12th October, 2014. It was supposed to take us to Bhadrak station in Orissa. But due to Hudhud's unwanted arrival, it was rerouted through Chhattisgarh. So, we got down at Kharagpur, waited for two hours to board another train to Bhadrak. Upon reaching there, we took lunch and after much bargaining, managed to find an unwilling driver, who would take us to Aranyanibas, the OTDC resthouse of Chandbali.

Aranyanivas, Chandbali, Orissa

  On Google map, the distance from Bhadrak to Chandbali, is only 52-53 km and should take only 2 hours at most. But our co-operative driver managed to find some route of his own, and took us only 4 hours to reach there. It was due to lack of proper communication skill on both the sides. Though Orissa is a neighboring state to West Bengal, we never bothered to learn or understand Oria, which is a beautiful language. Most bengali visitors concentrate on Puri, and frequent intermingling have resulted to dissolve the cultural barrier to some extent, other not so popular places still hold that barrier. I won't say that the people were not helpful, but how can they help, when they don't even understand that we need help!!

  Anyways, after reaching there, we settled into our rooms and prepared for the journey on the 14th. It was quite late , so we gave up any chances of exploring. Upon waking up, I found out that there's a river beside the hotel, the river Baitarani. The location was beautiful, somewhat photogenic. But I didn't waste my precious memory card space on shooting river pictures. By the way, the cyclone changed it's plan at the last moment, decided to give us a break and managed to reach Vizag. So, it was all smiles for us afterall. And we eagerly waited for the next morning. While others were holed up in the rooms, I took a stroll by the river and managed to capture a egret hunting. Below is a collage of sequential shots.

all three are the pic of the same bird, the water hyacinth was moving and being inexperienced with the new camera, it resulted in multiple exposure shots

  The jetty was just on the opposite side of the main entrance of the hotel. The boat was already waiting for us in the morning. At the day break, we all boarded the boat. There were some other boats also. In some, there were other visitors, but the rest were fishing boats. River Baitarani boasts off an number of different fish species as well as fresh water prawns.

this one took us to the national park

  The guide on board was a local, and so was the boatman. In spite of language barrier, they managed to make us feel comfortable in that boat. The weather was sunny and hot, the seats were hard plastic. So, you can take your best guess how comfortable we were! Anyways, the boat slowly made it's way towards the estuary and I made myself busy with birds...so many of them were there..different types of egrets, herons, storks, kingfishers..even some lapwings too.

  After reaching the estuary the boat turned towards right on its way towards the national park, and suddenly the guide cried out, "crocodile, crocodile". And there it was, a big saltie, or a saltwater crocodile.

big crocodile, about 13-14 feet

  It was big, I had to zoom out a little to fit it into the view finder. Spotting an animal or a bird is relatively easy as they are not hunted,but taking it's picture from a boat that is bobbing up and down constantly, is a difficult one, especially ,if the boat is making noise which can be heard from a long distance. The fearless croc never moved and I got enough time to get a few good shots,and then, we continued on our way. Think of it, these guys are contemporary of the dinosaurs,ate them for lunch and outlived them. Such a brilliant design by nature, they didn't even evolve much. Aren't they awe inspiring!!!
 
  As we moved further ahead, we spotted a pair of purple herons. Big birds with long neck, perched on the mangroves.

purple heron, a lifer for me

   Suddenly I spotted something moving on the river banks, I put my eyes to the camera to see what it was, it just jumped and as I pressed the shutter. It was a baby crocodile, may a foot long. It gave me the impression that they can run on the water as well. After a second, it was gone.

baby crocodile, they can make some splash

 We moved on..and came across another giant of a crocodile, but, it was not very confident around us, so, decided to disappear into the water.

big crocodile, approx 12'

   The river kept meandering into narrower channels and we continued probing further inside. We turned left and came across this guy. Maybe a girl..not sure, but very beautiful nonetheless.

medium crocodile,approx 6'

  Then we came across a open area and a number of crocodiles were swimming around. We can only see the top of their eyes and the nostrils.

large crocodile, swimming dangerously close to the boat

 We didn't wait there for much as we were approaching Dangmal island  where the migratory birds nest. On the way we spotted a few birds here and there, but none came to close vicinity.

a lone whimbrel

eurasian curlew

indian cuckoo

  We started our journey around 7 a.m. in the morning and reached Dangmal around 10:30 a.m.

the entrance to the nesting ground of migratory birds

  After we got down from the boat and planted our foot on the solid ground, we still felt a little wobbly, then we walked about 500 meters or so inland to reach the watch tower. While walking through the path we came across some other jewels of the mangrove. And they were colorful too..

red fiddler crab, male; with one big claw, quite common

blue fiddler crab, possibly female, not very common

 

river crab

   The mangrove was quite dark even with the sun overhead, and the canopy prevented the sunlight reaching the ground. This made the situation ideal for these little critters to flourish. If we stayed there a little longer, some other variety of these tiny crabs could have been found, but, we still had a long journey ahead...so we continued.

  Further inland, we reached the watch tower, climbed on it, and saw nothing but white trees. We came all the way to see some stupid trees...I was beginning to get disappointed, then to my astonishment, I watched, the canopies were moving..hell, there was no canopy at all...those white things were....

nesting open billed storks

    So many birds, together in one place, I was delighted. The hardship of the tour finally paid off. Then the guide claimed, This is not even half the number present..they are still coming in. And I made a point in my head, I need to go there once more. watching the birds for more than half an hour we began the decent. While coming back to the boat, I found another one of the nature's marvel.

mudskipper, it's a fish that can walk on the ground

  We boarded the boat, and were supposed to get to the other end of the island where we could have lunch, have a little rest and then board the boat again to make the tedious journey once again towards Chandbali. On the way, we met the cousin of the crocodiles, or maybe the half brother..who cares all of them are scary..

water monitor

  This guy was a real big one..it was climbing onto the river bank and came to standstill when it spotted us, after taking a few snaps, we moved ahead. After a while, we reached the other side of the island. It had accommodations for the tourists made by the forest department, which were to be pre-booked. The island itself was a place to see..It had a breeding centre for crocodiles, a museum, a park and some waterbodies that contained the bigger crocodile specimens. From the jetty to the museum, we had to tread through a open grassland fringed by mangroves, which is home to some different types of birds.

spotted dove

red wattled lapwing

pond heron

little egret

green bee eaters

   The mangrove also sheltered some deer, who were totally nonchalant to our presence and carried on with their daily routine.

spotted deer

  Then we visited the holding ponds of the large crocodiles, but the weather being hot, they were in no mood to entertain us with their presence...celebrities..But I needed to capture the white crocodile, or at least see it with my own eyes..there were two of them, in separate holding facilities. The holding facilities were like 20-30 square feet of ponds dug here and there and surrounded with iron mesh fences, which give you idea that you might not be as safe as you think..as those flimsy fencing will give way if any hungry crocodile decided to take a bite off you, so, I didn't wait much. Just when I was about to head back, guess who popped up!!!

a white crocodile, lacks the normal pigmentation, wild caught, kept for breeding

  I guess they do have a sense to tease you and test your patience....she (I checked the information plate stuck on the fence) never looked my way, and then, went out of view. So, I decide to check out the museum. It is not very big, and not like what you expect. It's a big hall with a few tables displaying a collection of animal specimens their body parts. Some of these were quite intriguing. Like the skeletons of the huge saltwater crocodiles.

crocodile skulls, the biggest on the right hand side is about 3' long

crocodile skeletons, humans are for measuring purpose only

   Some of the other interesting exhibits were...

skull of irrawady dolphin

skull of gangetic dolphin (in the middle)

of course, olive ridley skulls

   I had to include the Olive ridley pics, because you must have heard of Gahirmatha sea beach, the place where olive ridley turtles come to lay eggs.. we were supposed to visit there too, only the guide told us that DRDO has taken up that place for their research, so it was protected area, and entry permit was to be pre booked, and the breeding and egg laying season was over and we had to make a journey over perilous seawater, and blah blah blah...so..we decided against it, might have opportunity in future, who knows. Then it was time for lunch. And this guy, decided to pay us a visit, came right upto the hall, where we were eating.

huge water monitor, totally fearless

closeup of the same water monitor

   Anyways, we boarded the boat again after lunch, and started the return journey...from the very beginning of the journey, I kept my eyes open for the kingfishers as eight varieties of them are found here..I saw a number of black capped and brown winged kingfishers, as well as the stork billed kingfishers, I was unable to get any good picture of them, largely due to the skittish nature of the birds, they fly away after spotting the boat. The boat also kept bobbing up and down, providing a very unstable platform to work with, and lastly, but most important, my lack of knowledge about the camera. It was only 2-3 weeks old, so I was not familiar with the controls, it's capability and limitations were largely unknown to me..while returning we spotted a couple of pied kingfishers, but as luck would have it, they flew away before i could even focus on them. It started raining all of a sudden. Maybe, it was my luck crying out for missing those shots. Nothing much happened on the rest of the way...and it was almost dark when we docked at Chandbali.

   I always thought about going there again..maybe someday I will, armed with my cameras and a little more knowledge..until then, the mangrove pittas and the kingfishers can rest, I'll capture them in my dream. It's been a very long post, could have been longer if I took notes, but I recollected the entire episode from my memory and the photos that I took serially. We stayed for a week In Chandbali, but didn't take any more safaris, so the rest of the stay was as boring as it can get. I got some nice photos on those days, and may share them in future posts..If you have read the entire post, please feel free to drop your comments. Happy reading.