My travelogues: Phansad Wildlife Sanctuary (Phansad Vanya Jeev Abhyaranya)

Thursday, March 8, 2012

Phansad Wildlife Sanctuary (Phansad Vanya Jeev Abhyaranya) - Kashid

Phansad Wildlife Sanctuary

There is something about colors...and then there is definitely something when you hear the luring voices made by this fanciful wings of colors!!

A bit of innocence, a lot of teasing, a bundle of shyness, elusive haughtiness; your patience is tested by the smallest of flutters.

What is the fun in bird watching? I ask myself, and there are no ready answers!!
Is it the rawness of walking in the midst of nature where you can be with yourself, is it the deafening silence of the forest that makes even your breathing sound as the drums of a rock song, is it the delightful fright of being pounced upon by a wild animal or is it the common ugly human mentality of trying to capture something elusive and pride yourself later...maybe none, maybe all!!
But one thing I am sure, being armed with my Canon DSLR, being on the pursuit of the winged chirpiness, walking meaninglessly or rather meaningfully amongst the wilderness DOES MAKE ME HAPPY!!

This time I got another friend of mine hooked to it and his excitement told me that he now enjoys this hobby!!

The Phansad Wildlife sanctuary (Phansad Vanya Jeev Abhyaranya) is about 20 km from Kashid. It doesn't seem to be a popular destination as I hardly saw anyone for the 2 days that I visited the sanctuary. The encore of the sea at Kashid beach is more
delightful for all and sundry, it seems. Take a left when you see the Phansad board when you go beyond Kashid. The sanctuary is on the road to Roha.
You can take your vehicle inside the sanctuary and it might be advisable to do so as the sanctuary is well spread and covering it on foot would be rather difficult. The attendant at the entrance told us that with lady luck shining, you might see Sambhars, deers crossing your path. The Shekru (Giant brown squirrel) is also found here, however we didn't see any. We did see a big squirrel, but it wasn't a Shekru.

The sanctuary is a dense jungle with pathways leading to different open spaces in different directions. We landed at the sanctuary at 4:30 pm the 1st day, thinking it would be time for the birds to come home and we could get good sightings, but this was not to be. Though the chirping, whistling, cooing indicated our friends were there, but they preferred to stay elusive. The dense foliage makes photographing the birds difficult with the branches and twigs eating up your focus. There are watch towers inside. At the entrance of the sanctuary, we saw tents for accommodation. I think it would be a great idea to stay overnight in the tents and venture on your bird watching expedition early morning. The tented accommodation costs around INR 400.

What lies ahead....

Watch Tower OR watched tower??

And I stared into the shining sun (Pink Floyd)

We saw the brown kingfisher and some other birds the 1st day but not many. A funny incident worth mentioning happened. Right from the time we started our trek from the entrance to wherever we went inside the sanctuary, a dog watched over us, sometimes
guiding, sometimes just being there. If he ran ahead, it waited for us to catch up, if we didn't it found us, if we were to tread ahead, it just followed, if we stopped, it stopped, it waited for our idiosyncrasies to get over as we stood gaping at the trees to catch a sight. Why he did this, we didn't know, but he did and we liked it...our saviour for the day!!

Armed Guard

Walking on one of the pathways, a caretaker coming out of nowhere told us that he had spotted a flock of green pigeons (do they exist?) and barbetts, a little away from the sanctuary, at a place called Devrai where tiny fruits borne on some trees seemed to
be the reason for the flocked fancies.

So next day we parked our car at the sanctuary and ventured to Devrai, which is a small village. Crossing a field and asking for directions we came to an open space across the field with a small temple. We looked and we looked, we glared and gaped, but all we could see was a kingfisher. Just when our disappointment caught up on us; like magic a flock of around 20-25 birds, out of nowhere took the air-borne route. We now knew we were at the right place and could see the small fruits mentioned to us earlier.

At the village of Devrai

Did we lose the green??

At work!!

We held our patience and were rewarded. We saw many varieties, the names I have to search over, but we did see many, some perfectly camouflaged, some not so shy. Had seen a drongo many times before but this was the first time was seeing it sipping

nectar from a flower. Though the photographs aren't something I am very proud about, but the field trip and every drop of sweat spent on that sunny morning and afternoon was worth it!!