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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| a lone whimbrel |
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| eurasian curlew |
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indian cuckoo
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We started our journey around 7 a.m. in the morning and reached Dangmal around 10:30 a.m.
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| 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..
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| red fiddler crab, male; with one big claw, quite common |
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| blue fiddler crab, possibly female, not very common |
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| 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....
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| 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.
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| 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..
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| 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.
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| spotted dove |
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| red wattled lapwing |
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| pond heron |
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| little egret |
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| green bee eaters |
The mangrove also sheltered some deer, who were totally nonchalant to our presence and carried on with their daily routine.
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| 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!!!
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| 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.
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| crocodile skulls, the biggest on the right hand side is about 3' long |
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| crocodile skeletons, humans are for measuring purpose only |
Some of the other interesting exhibits were...
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| skull of irrawady dolphin |
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| skull of gangetic dolphin (in the middle) |
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| 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.
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| huge water monitor, totally fearless |
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| 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.
