all photos are here
After many hiccups and rescheduling we finally made a visit to the mangroves of Krishna river. The meetup was posted a month back but due to last minute drop outs again we had only 5 participants to go with. But since me and Murthy decided to go ahead with the program irrespective of number of participants, we went ahead and spent our very rich 2 days at the eastern edge.
In the camera traps setup in this area as part of Murthy's work, we surprisingly got many shots of Otters in them. 2016 being year of the Otter, we decided we will do this program themed on Otters named precisely as "The Otter trail". I caught the passenger train till Repalle with 4 other participants (all Microsoft employees). It took 8 hours overnight for this otherwise short journey of 300kms from Hyderabad.
After an amazing breakfast and few lessons of telugu language, we headed towards the village from where our boat ride for mangroves starts. We had our booked ambassador car with a very friendly driver who kept narrating about the area. At a small pond on the way my eye spotted a colorful bird that flew by. We stopped the car and all crazily started exploring the area and we managed to see atleast 10 different species of birds here including common kingfisher, pied kingfisher, golden oriole, white waterhen etc.
We headed further to the site from where our boat ride starts. As we waited for our boat, Appa introduced a villager who's goat were hunted by a fishing cat few days back. As part of conservation here it is important to compensate such loses and find solutions as well. Murthy heard it and took all notes/pics so that it can be taken forward.
After the wait our boat arrived. Mahendra from local village will be our facilitator for the next 2 days. We took a halt at a creek to explore the mangroves. It was low tide so it wasn't possible to go on boat so Appa and Mahendra garu guided us on foot through the swampy mangroves. This was a very active forest with lots of creatures all around like the crabs, the mud skippers, the curlew birds and lot of pug marks of the endangered fishing cat. Appa told us about the 27 different species of mangroves found here and Murthy explained about the unique adaptation of mangroves in this estuary ecosystem (aerial or pencil roots and prop roots).
We now continued our journey to village. It was a very simple village on this secluded island. The house where we stayed was a simple one with two rooms, an open terrace and palm trees all around. As it was very hot, we planned to enjoy the lunch and rest till evening.
Evening at about 4pm we started another ride on boat towards an isolated beach, you cannot reach here by road. It took us about an hour to reach here. On the way our eyes looking around at all the mangroves flourishing here. We could spot a lot of birds like the western reef egrets and swarms of black headed gulls roosting above our boats.
We reached the beach and there was no one here apart from us. We all happily strolled around for about an hour. We saw a huge number of broken egg shells which were of Olive Ridley turtles, seemed hunted by the grey jackals. You cannot really mess with nature but with the dwindling populations of these turtles it felt a very sad scenario. Later we also saw 2 carcass of the fully grown turtles. High chances they were hit by some ship and were washed away to the shore.
It was getting dark now so we decided to head back. The return journey was an epic one and the best part of the trip. The sky was clear and since there was no stray light in vicinity we could see infinite numbers of stars above us. The prominent band of milky-way galaxy was very much visible. I was using my binocular and we had lazer light which Appa's brother got from US. It was a delight.
At village Murthy then gave a brief knowledge sharing about his work and about the wildlife of eastern ghats. It was a good session followed by another amazing round of food. We then all went to terrace to view the sky, where Nagarjuna also spotted an owlet couple (spotted owlet) which we had a chance to glance at. Nagarjuna is a school teacher, painter and one of our regular participant from Vizag. I later kept looking at the sky through my binocs. I was amazed by a cluster of stars that I spotted through my binocs, about a 1000 stars accumulated at a spot. I kept watching it for a while wondering the enormity of our cosmos.
A fantastic day ended and it was time to sleep. The night became colder with time and to my surprize there were no mosquitoes here to disturb us.
Sunday, 6 March 2016
The morning light woke us all. Few of us went to explore around the village for our morning call. I was surprised to spot a fantail flycatcher in a bush. We headed back to our home stay where we had to wait for some time for our breakfast. I was getting anxious due to running out of the best time to spot wildlife. We finally ate some delicious dosas before heading to another mangrove creek on our boat. It was already about 9.30 am as we explored here on foot. These mangroves were different, with thorns, and aldo the swamp below, so it was very hard to walk through them. Me Appa and Pragati were courageous enough to take our steps and go to the other side while all others just observed the patch around. We saw few more pug marks of fishing cat and some birds. We headed back to the village from where we boarded our boat yesterday as we had to drop Murthy Appa and Spandana who had to go to Guntur.
Now it was me Raman Pragathi and her husband, along with Mahendra garu. We were heading towards the light house which was about 2 hours away. This was the worst part of the trip as we were traveling on an open boat under the bright noon sun, in a really humid environment. I was trying to observe some species on the riverside but there were none due to the heat. Later I felt the shock of dehydration and stress when we just reached the light house. I was dying to eat some food and take some rest.
The light was a place beyond my imagination. In middle of mangroves just shy of the coastline there was this high structure. Around there were few quarters where the care takers of this light house stayed. I didn't wanted to interact these (expected to be) non-polite govt. officials but we needed their permission to relax there and also visit the top of the light house, if possible. Mahendra garu was taking care of this conversation in Telugu but as I could see it wasn't going any friendly. I then intervened and talked with this Surprisingly polite Mr.Das who was a Bengali posted here since 3 months. He was flawless in Telugu and I was happy to talk about his life how he got into this job and have been serving at various light-houses along the eastern coastline all his life. His senior was also Bengali from whom we got all permissions.
We finally settled for lunch but it was a only fish-curry, rice and curd. I was disappointed to not see any veg curry. I had to eat that fish, which was really really tasty but I broke my promise to remain vegetarian for animal love, only for this extreme scenario. I napped for a while there under a tree shade and then we climbed the 8 floors to reach the top of the light-house. The expanse of mangrove forest that we saw from the top was a sight of life. You could see the green spread and the creeks cutting through it, meeting the sea. It was all the worth of the tiring journey we did today.
We had to start back now as there was a cab waiting for us at the village to take us back to station. Lot of birds, mainly kingfishers and blue-tailed bee-eaters I observed. We then took a halt in the middle of the river to catch some fish (I don't even know when Pragathi and Raghu communicated their wish to Mahendra in Telugu). There were two illusions that were prominent. One that we are traveling towards ocean, which was an effect the waves of high tide (infact we were traveling faster upstream, than noon due to this). Second was that we were in deep water. We all jumped out of the boat to put the net and then catch all the fishes caught into it due to the tide.
We continued our journey with no one talking but all enjoying the view around. I was really down now, could feel the high fever I had. We spotted a water snake but no one could click a photo. We were finally at village where after a cup of tea we headed towards the station in the ambassador.
It took me a couple of days to recover from the journey. I got a call from Appa Rao next day thanking us for doing the great work, conserving the forest and also providing income to local villagers. I also thanked him for all his support for the amazing 2 days we spent there. He also mentioned how tough it is to work in mangroves. He himself never go out in hot sun, the reason why I got so sick. It looks now a promising place for us to carry out our work and also lot of field programs to create awareness about the wildlife here.
After many hiccups and rescheduling we finally made a visit to the mangroves of Krishna river. The meetup was posted a month back but due to last minute drop outs again we had only 5 participants to go with. But since me and Murthy decided to go ahead with the program irrespective of number of participants, we went ahead and spent our very rich 2 days at the eastern edge.
In the camera traps setup in this area as part of Murthy's work, we surprisingly got many shots of Otters in them. 2016 being year of the Otter, we decided we will do this program themed on Otters named precisely as "The Otter trail". I caught the passenger train till Repalle with 4 other participants (all Microsoft employees). It took 8 hours overnight for this otherwise short journey of 300kms from Hyderabad.
Saturday, 5 March 2016
The morning at Repalle was fresh and I was already smiling due to the small town atmosphere with local vendor shops serving delicious south Indian food and tea. I was also really happy to meet Appa Rao after a long time. The same simple yet inspiring person who overtook the task of re-planting Mangroves over the whooping 190sqkms. I can never forget to mention about his efforts.After an amazing breakfast and few lessons of telugu language, we headed towards the village from where our boat ride for mangroves starts. We had our booked ambassador car with a very friendly driver who kept narrating about the area. At a small pond on the way my eye spotted a colorful bird that flew by. We stopped the car and all crazily started exploring the area and we managed to see atleast 10 different species of birds here including common kingfisher, pied kingfisher, golden oriole, white waterhen etc.
We headed further to the site from where our boat ride starts. As we waited for our boat, Appa introduced a villager who's goat were hunted by a fishing cat few days back. As part of conservation here it is important to compensate such loses and find solutions as well. Murthy heard it and took all notes/pics so that it can be taken forward.
After the wait our boat arrived. Mahendra from local village will be our facilitator for the next 2 days. We took a halt at a creek to explore the mangroves. It was low tide so it wasn't possible to go on boat so Appa and Mahendra garu guided us on foot through the swampy mangroves. This was a very active forest with lots of creatures all around like the crabs, the mud skippers, the curlew birds and lot of pug marks of the endangered fishing cat. Appa told us about the 27 different species of mangroves found here and Murthy explained about the unique adaptation of mangroves in this estuary ecosystem (aerial or pencil roots and prop roots).
We now continued our journey to village. It was a very simple village on this secluded island. The house where we stayed was a simple one with two rooms, an open terrace and palm trees all around. As it was very hot, we planned to enjoy the lunch and rest till evening.
Evening at about 4pm we started another ride on boat towards an isolated beach, you cannot reach here by road. It took us about an hour to reach here. On the way our eyes looking around at all the mangroves flourishing here. We could spot a lot of birds like the western reef egrets and swarms of black headed gulls roosting above our boats.
We reached the beach and there was no one here apart from us. We all happily strolled around for about an hour. We saw a huge number of broken egg shells which were of Olive Ridley turtles, seemed hunted by the grey jackals. You cannot really mess with nature but with the dwindling populations of these turtles it felt a very sad scenario. Later we also saw 2 carcass of the fully grown turtles. High chances they were hit by some ship and were washed away to the shore.
It was getting dark now so we decided to head back. The return journey was an epic one and the best part of the trip. The sky was clear and since there was no stray light in vicinity we could see infinite numbers of stars above us. The prominent band of milky-way galaxy was very much visible. I was using my binocular and we had lazer light which Appa's brother got from US. It was a delight.
At village Murthy then gave a brief knowledge sharing about his work and about the wildlife of eastern ghats. It was a good session followed by another amazing round of food. We then all went to terrace to view the sky, where Nagarjuna also spotted an owlet couple (spotted owlet) which we had a chance to glance at. Nagarjuna is a school teacher, painter and one of our regular participant from Vizag. I later kept looking at the sky through my binocs. I was amazed by a cluster of stars that I spotted through my binocs, about a 1000 stars accumulated at a spot. I kept watching it for a while wondering the enormity of our cosmos.
A fantastic day ended and it was time to sleep. The night became colder with time and to my surprize there were no mosquitoes here to disturb us.
Sunday, 6 March 2016
The morning light woke us all. Few of us went to explore around the village for our morning call. I was surprised to spot a fantail flycatcher in a bush. We headed back to our home stay where we had to wait for some time for our breakfast. I was getting anxious due to running out of the best time to spot wildlife. We finally ate some delicious dosas before heading to another mangrove creek on our boat. It was already about 9.30 am as we explored here on foot. These mangroves were different, with thorns, and aldo the swamp below, so it was very hard to walk through them. Me Appa and Pragati were courageous enough to take our steps and go to the other side while all others just observed the patch around. We saw few more pug marks of fishing cat and some birds. We headed back to the village from where we boarded our boat yesterday as we had to drop Murthy Appa and Spandana who had to go to Guntur.
Now it was me Raman Pragathi and her husband, along with Mahendra garu. We were heading towards the light house which was about 2 hours away. This was the worst part of the trip as we were traveling on an open boat under the bright noon sun, in a really humid environment. I was trying to observe some species on the riverside but there were none due to the heat. Later I felt the shock of dehydration and stress when we just reached the light house. I was dying to eat some food and take some rest.
The light was a place beyond my imagination. In middle of mangroves just shy of the coastline there was this high structure. Around there were few quarters where the care takers of this light house stayed. I didn't wanted to interact these (expected to be) non-polite govt. officials but we needed their permission to relax there and also visit the top of the light house, if possible. Mahendra garu was taking care of this conversation in Telugu but as I could see it wasn't going any friendly. I then intervened and talked with this Surprisingly polite Mr.Das who was a Bengali posted here since 3 months. He was flawless in Telugu and I was happy to talk about his life how he got into this job and have been serving at various light-houses along the eastern coastline all his life. His senior was also Bengali from whom we got all permissions.
We finally settled for lunch but it was a only fish-curry, rice and curd. I was disappointed to not see any veg curry. I had to eat that fish, which was really really tasty but I broke my promise to remain vegetarian for animal love, only for this extreme scenario. I napped for a while there under a tree shade and then we climbed the 8 floors to reach the top of the light-house. The expanse of mangrove forest that we saw from the top was a sight of life. You could see the green spread and the creeks cutting through it, meeting the sea. It was all the worth of the tiring journey we did today.
We had to start back now as there was a cab waiting for us at the village to take us back to station. Lot of birds, mainly kingfishers and blue-tailed bee-eaters I observed. We then took a halt in the middle of the river to catch some fish (I don't even know when Pragathi and Raghu communicated their wish to Mahendra in Telugu). There were two illusions that were prominent. One that we are traveling towards ocean, which was an effect the waves of high tide (infact we were traveling faster upstream, than noon due to this). Second was that we were in deep water. We all jumped out of the boat to put the net and then catch all the fishes caught into it due to the tide.
We continued our journey with no one talking but all enjoying the view around. I was really down now, could feel the high fever I had. We spotted a water snake but no one could click a photo. We were finally at village where after a cup of tea we headed towards the station in the ambassador.
It took me a couple of days to recover from the journey. I got a call from Appa Rao next day thanking us for doing the great work, conserving the forest and also providing income to local villagers. I also thanked him for all his support for the amazing 2 days we spent there. He also mentioned how tough it is to work in mangroves. He himself never go out in hot sun, the reason why I got so sick. It looks now a promising place for us to carry out our work and also lot of field programs to create awareness about the wildlife here.
