Barbara!!

Barbara!

What do you imagine? A Blonde beautiful women? 

Alas it's a Forest Reserve I'm talking about. Though the name was given after a British Forest Officer's wife who was killed by a Tiger there. I had been quite lucky to be traveling twice to the beautiful jungles of Barbara, under the Division of Khurda, Odisha, India. And of course hoping for more visits.

Barbara is kind of a pristine jungle, less explored as compared to other places and that's a reason why roaming inside is a kind of experience one does not forget! A place to  wander, to find mammals and birds and butterflies and other nature's wonders. Beautiful to the core and a paradise for nature lovers. All green around, narrow paths made for nature trails and in between streams gives a pleasant feeling. Both my trips had been content to my heart. Being a lover of feathered and winged beauties, I got a lot of birds and butterflies to see and got some good photos. 

My first visit had been a day-trip with a group of nature-explorer men. We had a good time hunting down the place majorly for birds. Of course we were in the stealth mode and had a nice local lunch on our way back. 

Second had been for a survey purpose with the senior wild-lifers and fellow junglee friends. A trip to count majorly the number of bird species and other fauna found in the Barbara Reserve Forest as per the briefings. We halted there the previous night at a nice guest house. At night too a search and discussion on fauna was on.  With merely two hours of sleep we were up to catch the early birds. Got divided into teams and along with the forest officials and vehicles we went on bird searching. Had to take in the humid and sweaty weather. We found many lifer bird species and I found few butterflies too. Around noon freshened up back at the guest house and had a hefty lunch. After lots of bird discussions and experience sharing of the day, all started off towards the city and after a small gathering all dispersed to respective their homes :-)  All the listings from various team were compiled and given to the respective forest official. What a well spent day! Specially learning from the seniors like Mr. Manoj Nair. His bird recognizing skills with his sharp eyes and bird calls made us all awestruck !

I experienced a lot of things but did not get such amazing photographs. Here sharing whatever I could land my hands on, I mean camera on! :-)

A series of 'Common Lascar' butterfly.

Indian Pitta

Plum-headed Parakeet - Male

Scarlet Minivet - Male

Scarlet Minivet - Male

A pretty flower

Common Sailer

Common Crow

Spot Swordtail

The jungle routes

Fire in the woods !

Mating Robber flies

Common Emerald Dove                         Green Imperial Pigeon

Common Fourring

Common Grass Yellow

Double-banded Judy

Some tree fruits. Beautiful aren't they!

leaf canopy

Little things to notice .. Ants!

Some Insect house!

Indian Peacock

Indian Golden Oriole

Some Mushrooms ?

Yellow-footed Green Pigeon

More species :

Recording of a 'Indian Pitta' call. Do watch in HD !

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Some Trip photos:

First Trip

Second Trip

Me of course :)

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Thank you for giving time to read and watch the post! I made it way too long. Couldn't control! After all I'm blogging after almost a year!

Love

Tanuja :-)

Waterfoul Census_Chandaka 13'

13.01.13

Last year had been twice lucky to participate in the waterfowl census for Odisha. This year too, out of the office schedule, I got involved in two census places. Chandaka and Nandankanan. 

For friends who want more idea on what I am talking about please go through the following two links:

Chandaka Bird Census and Chilika Bird Census

This was also a nice and different experience, considering the new places one visits, birds you search and the company of like-minded senior birding people. Its all a goody feeling. The initial plan was with Udayan, but as he was in New Delhi I tried connecting to other folks. :) Next time lets not miss the fun!

Got ready at 4.30 am. Got picked by Manoo di along with sanjib bhai. (It was very kind of them to pick me up for the trip, even though my place was in such an opposite direction.) We reached the place by 6 and after some tea, group discussion and grouping we were ready to move on to our respective places for annual water bird counting.
I got into Shakti bhai and Sanjib bhai's group and the journey began. I do not have much bird photos but there are more of travel photos. 

Rest let the pictures talk :) 

The Entry Gate to Chandaka 

All gearing up for the census

Nanda, an elephant was nearby - of course tied up :P

We off to the destination

Guptapada

It was all foggy. The feeling was beautiful there.

The Forest official, Shakti Bhai and Sanjib Bhai looking out for the birds.

Caught the sunrise

Some beautiful reflections

Grey Francolin

The clear water and clean environment 

Long-Tailed Shrike

Lesser-Whistling Ducks

Manupur

Pretty water lily

Little Grebe

Inside Chandaka 

Liked this path made with vehicle tyres

Some beautiful ladies working there

A crocodile in sight

A little bird, I could not recognise

Ambilo watch tower area - Chandaka

Elephant foot marks near the water body

Soura Billa

Deras - Most common place for the city picnickers

Shakti bhai and Sanjib Bhai

Me

The places we visited,  Guptapada, Kajalabanda/ Manupur, Dhalaswar, Languri, Ambilo and Saura Billa. 

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The Birds listed were:

• Little Cormorant
• Lesser Whistling Duck
• Pintail Snipe
• Common Snipe
• Little Grebe
• Purple Moorhen
• White-Throated Kingfisher
• Small-Blue Kingfisher
• White-breasted Waterhen
• Bronze-Winged Jacana
• Pond Heron
• Yellow Wagtail
• White Wagtail
• Grey Wagtail
• Red-Wattled Lapwing
• Yellow-Wattled Lapwing
• Cattle Egret
• Little Egret
• Intermediate Egret 

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Unlike the previous Chandaka trip, this was a little dry in terms of the birds there. I hardly have any bird photo clicked because either they were only visible for recognition or too common to click. But the experience overall was good and surely looking forward to again visit the beautiful place.



Love <3>

Tanuja :)