Monday, May 30, 2022
Bhitarkanika 16 march morning /evening boat ride
Saturday, May 28, 2022
Manglajodi day3
Friday, May 27, 2022
Vetkai Day 2 Orissa March 14 2022
Sunday, May 22, 2022
Orissa- East India with rich History
Looking after a long Covid (no travel) break, we all decided to look up Orrisa.
Talking to my friends realised that we need local guides and no permits necessary- we planned our trip.
13th March 2022 to 22nd March 2022.-Dr Kiran,Dr Ketki,Ms Roda, And Ms Ameeta took the Indigo flight to Bhubhaneshnar .
Biju Patnaik Airport. Ramesh driver-(9338064291) has sent his colleague to pick us up. Smooth ride in Mahindra xuv,in about one hour and 45 minutes , Straight to a village close to Manglajodi. We were put up in a decent hotel-Apsara.
Manglajodi is a small picturesque village on Chilika Lake’s northern-western fringe, known for its marshes and water fowl congregations.
Evening safari was very fruitful. Mr Madhu a local guide gave us a small fishing boat with a guide excellent at showing us most of the species.
Manglajodi is famous for bird photography- especially with action- example mating of birds, black headed Ibis catching a frog or some such action.
Manglajodi has come a long way to get here. Mangalajodi was famous as ‘poachers’ village’ because of the involvement of villagers in water bird poaching on a large, commercial scale. Even the eggs were not spared. It was no surprise therefore, when the census in the year 2000, counted a mere 5,000 birds in these waters.
Protection has benefited not only Manglajodi’s birds, but all of its fantastic biodiversity including, among myriad others, fish, snakes, monitor lizards and the elusive Fishing Cat.
Manglajodi now host more than 1,50,000 birds in the peak season and has been designated the status of ‘Important Bird Area’ by Birdlife International (www.birdlife.org) for its importance as a significant global waterfowl habitat.
Evening safari Highlights were 1-yellow bittern,2-cinnamon bittern,3-black bittern,4-ballion's crake,5-ruddy breasted crake.Mating of purple swamphen.and leucistic temminck's stint, were spotted . Temminck's stint comes from Scandanivia and extremely rare find in Manglajodi.
Photographs will come as another part blog
Morning at 6.30 a.m we left for Vedki.
First halt was at village of Balugaon. Majestic White bellied Sea eagle Mother royally sitting on gaurd at her nest looking after her "big Baby". Father Eagle was close by in another tree.
On route we saw lots of Indian rollers and a single male peacock in the fields.A surprise stop for a male shikra brought us with encounter of the Jungle cat running away fast from us. Lots of fish was bought by Ramesh driver and we halted for some breakfast of Puris and bhajji, at a local dhabba.
Stopped our car at Aska village. Here we walked upto the edge of one small river where Ramesh gave the Brahminy kites a feast of Fish. There were more than 150 Brahminy kites which circled the skies above us and we enjoyed the acrobats of how these kites caught the fish.
In the black buck sanctuary- there were hardly one or two lonesome blackbucks. Looking around the sanctuary we got a surprise find of the Egyptian vulture, feeding on the calf carcass.
Ramesh told us a story- how far true I do not know, but love to share it with all of you Reading my blog here.
The Story:
Once upon a time there were lots of vultures in this area , but a goods train passing by killed a whole herd of buffaloes crossing the tracks.The vultures came down and were having a feast but did not realise that a Bhagalpur Express train came in so fast and killed all of them.After that day not a single vulture was spotted. We were the lucky ones who will report the sighting of an Egyptian vulture after 20 years.
Evening we went to RUSHIKULIA. Took a speed fishing boat and enjoyed the Olive ridley turtles feasting on their favorite food the jelly fish. After feasting on juicy watermelons which was our lunch and tea went home to Apsara hotel.
15 march 2022
Went for Morning Safari at Manglajodi to see all what we had left behind. Early morning Ramesh spotted 2 spotted owlets,roosting in a Banyan tree.
1- long toed stints
2-striated grassbird
3-nesting of oriental pranticole
4-red necked stints.
5-caspian tern.
Our car Mahindra xuv came to pick us up and we left for Bhitarkanika. After about non stop drive passing through rice fields on either side we reached our destination after 5 hours. It was a cosy home stay of Mr Bijoy Das. It was called Mangrove Pitta.
Evening we took rest since it was extremely hot. We walked around the village where locals were playing a cricket match .
16 March 2022
In search of the BIRD we had travelled so FAR-"MANGROVE PITTA" ALSO CALLED BLUE WINGED PITTA.
A foggy morning heard a lot of calls and saw a few birds at eye levels
large cuckooshrike,greater flameback,spotted owlet, grey hornbill, spotted deers BUT no luck for Mangrove Pitta. Tired due to intense heat - we retired dejected .
Evening boat ride was good:
known for the famous Salt water crocodiles, but we were late in season to see BIG ones.We saw small baby crocs.
Feast of king fishers:
1-common blue kingfishers
2-collared king fishers
3- black capped king fisher
4-brown winged kingfisher
5- peregrine falcon.
They say KING of Bhitarkanika is Brown winged kingfisher
QUEEN of Bhitarkanika is Mangrove Pitta .
King Was seen seen but Queen was elusive.
Dr Kiran had too much Hyper acidity, and evening went to local chemist shop 2 kms away to buy some medicines. OILY food And Heat took its toll on Rodu too.
17 March 2022
Gopi and Myself along with Bijoy Das went into the forest and BINGO - we saw our Queen several times and also got good videos . Happy and elated came back early to rest in our rooms.
Made some friends too.Nice birding in the morning-stork billed kingfisher,red jungle fowl-male/female feeding in the open grasslands.Greater and lesser black rumped flameback -male/female. Heat was catching on and so we retreated to the cool AC room of the hotel-HAPPY AS EVER-MISSION ACCOMPLISHED
EVENING 17 March :
We took the Boat Ride -but I did not do my home work well. We went on full moon day and did not check tide timing as well. This was for leopard cat.Leopard cats are normally seen well on low tides-when it comes ashore to fish and easily seen.We did get a glimpse of the shy cat....but sadly it did not pose and just vanished.
March 18 2022
we went early into the park all of us - and without any luck of the Mangrove pitta. Rodu did try to walk but was exhausted due to heat we decided to return . Lucky to see the Chestnut capped Babblers and pin stiped tit babblers, and orange headed ground thrush as close as you can touch. We also saw Paradise flycatcher female, and male /female fulvous breasted woodpeckers.
Evening Rodu did not want to come and and just chilled out. We had lots of fun with Pitta and of course lots of other common species , but the weekend rush was very high. Still we heard the alarm call of the spotted deer and we managed to see the jungle cat.Returned to the home stay and chatted with our new friends -who were wild life photoghers doing a documentary on Mud skippers.His partner was a villain in some films and narrated some stories as well .
March 19 2022
We bid good bye Bijoy Das and his family and left for Bhubhneswar.We stayed at the Trident. Nice clean rooms. We went shopping at the Orrissa -Ekmara Haut.
March 20 2022:
Left early for Konarak-Lovely temple and our guide was extremely funny. After that we left to go to a village for handicrafts called Pimpli . IF you really want to help out the craftsmen then only visit -or else give it a MISS.(my Suggestion).We visited the Udaygiri temple which also was a let down. We ate at Mayfair Lagoon-lovely place and enjoyed our evening .Rodu's treat.
March 21 2022:
Left for Puri . We first went to Satpada for dolphin watch. Very highly commercial and people take tourists for a ride. We did see a few dlphins jump up. But sadly I could not watch how the gulls were fed with CHIVDAS by all tourists. -SAD
We Went to see the Majestic temple- outside view I was awestruck- but the chaos inside left a bad impact on my mind. We visited the arts and craft lane which too was useless. We visited the ling Raja temple. All Shiva temples were there. Nice Place.
We saw the Ram mandir temple and raja rani temples which were good .Went to buy sweets from Vineet sweets before catching a flight to Mumbai.
Will post a few highlight pictures down below.
1-Bhitarkanika :
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More photographs follow in another blog
day 1 Mangala jodi Birds
