Hello all, A small visit we (Harishchandra Mhatre & I) paid on Thursday night and following morning of Friday on the foothills of Bhimashankar Wildlife Sanctuary. We approached the sanctuary from western side of the PA. We actually drove from Neral to Nandgaon which is sparse vegetated forest and scrub land. The base of the sanctuary is deciduous and as we climb up it is typical evergreen forest, which is identity of the Western Ghats.
As we drove further and reached the base at late night, we realised that perhaps something is not good. The forest , the lower canopy, had caught a huge and rapidly engulfing FOREST FIRE. This incident perhaps brought some sense of disappointment. The sense of being in one of the finest forest which is heading to slow death. The actual size of the problem was only realised the next morning when we saw huge patches of GREEN turned BLACK that is too with ashy smoke. Anyways, we didnt given up the hope and continued on our expedition. The Start of the birding was slightly better untill unless we realised that we have fallen short of water supply and that was nowhere available. The winter migrants were still to say GOOD BYE hence we could see few of them. The resident birds, few among them, were due for breeding season and hence the plumage appeared clearly. One boy was seen carrying a catapult which Mr Mhatre confiscated it from him. The boy was unwilling to do that but Mr Mhatre had all reason to get it done. He took out his bird guide and shown it to him saying that killing these beautiful birds would do no good to you. Few of these birds travel from far and take refuge here for little time and it is not good to kill them merciless. The boy was bit uncomfortable hearing all this perhaps for him it was a googly. Because for him the matter was his survival. These guys dont get the sources for livelihood and it is hard to get into their shoes by just telling them what is CONSERVATION. I mean we city dwellers get everything ready made and these guys struggle to survive. With this understanding Mr Mhatre offered him some money for him to buy some food and do the needfull for his family. The guy was little hesitant but later on obliged and accepted the offer. His hand was little injured we offered him some ointment which I was carrying but he denied to have it. He left the place saying that he would use some medicinal plants to cure his injury. Thereafter we birded and I did little flowering as well. The Mahua was in fruiting and that was the reason there was good birding activity around. Even on Bombax cieba tree sunbirds and flower peckers was seen nectaring. After reaching at certain height we realised that we are in need of water which was the urgent need of the hour. This was probably because of the heat due to last night forest fire. I wonder how intense the damage would have been to the wild denizens. We searched a lot for water, stream, but no success. We probably landed in another village in search of water. The villagers offered us water here. We drunk much as we could. Here I write few of birds that we saw: Black Shouldered Kite Black Kite Oriental Honey Buzzard Crested Serpent Eagle Shikra Common Sandpiper Vernal Hanging Parrot Plum Headed Parakeet Indian Nightjar (heard, last night) Indian Roller Common Woodshrike Large Cuckooshrike Common Iora (In breeding plumage) Racket Tailed Drongo White Bellied Drongo (number of sighting surpassed the other Drongos) Eurasian (Indian) Golden Oriole Black Hooded Oriole Asian Paradise Flycatcher - Female Black Napped Monarch Rufous Treepie Grey Breasted Prinia Blyth`s Warbler Greenish Warbler Western Crowned Warbler Lesser White-throat White Cheecked Warbler Brown Cheecked Fulvetta Jungle Myna Rosy Starling Red Breasted Flycatcher Common Stonechat Viggor`s Sunbird Common Rosefinch Yellow Wagtail and many more. All inclusive some 70 species were observed and noted in birding list. The additional sightings were Field Rat, Geckos and few good number of tree species. Again coming to the issue of lines of conflict where the livelihood of forest dwellers depend on the forest resources. The loss is of both the parties , including the forest sources and forest dwellers. But for one it is immediate loss and for another it is remote loss but long lasting and with no DAMAGE CONTROL. WE NEED TO THINK ABOUT IT, WELL & SERIOUSLY. Regards Rajesh Sachdev http://project-matheran.webs.com/ http://www.facebook.com/leopardguy
