Driving thru rural Odisha early in the morn
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Thru the wet lands on a Pole Boat
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Google Map of the route we took from Puri to Mangalajodi
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Driving thru rural Odisha early in the morn
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Mangalajodi Wetlands,
Odisha, India, 17 June 2016.
Birder's paradise in the brackish water wetlands at the northern corner of Chilika Lagoon. Rustic, privately managed and a fantastic example of local villagers protecting an avian habitat to maximise tourism opportunities.
With legendary Madhu Behera
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Final turn off to Mangalajodi from the Highway near Tangi Fire Station
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Thru the wet lands on a Pole Boat
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Sharp at 5 am Chauffeur Bhanja came around to the hotel I was staying at Puri and picked me up in his Tata Indigo car. We drove through lush green rural Odisha. Past villages slowly waking up to a wet dawn. Sometimes a drizzle, at other times a burst of morning sunlight. Good bird activity all around us till we hit the busy National Highway. We crossed several streams and two fairly wide distributories of River Daya. On the way we crossed Was quite impressed with the quality of interior rural roads. Obviously the present authorities were doing some good work. Google Map says we covered 72 km but it was actually a 80 km drive from my hotel to the jetty at the edge of the wetland. We reached Mangalajodi after a leisurely 2 hour drive.
There are 132 villages around Chilika Lagoon. Mangalajodi is one of those at the North-Eastern edge of Lagoon. The 10 sq km brackish water wetlands adjacent to the village is an unique Birder’s paradise. There are a few thousand resident birds of 40 odd species. You get to see them right round the year. Then about 400,000 migrants of another 150 odd species arrive during the monsoon months. I found a very informative article about the wetlands here.
But it wasn’t the bird’s paradise it is now. Earlier, the Mangalajodi wetlands was a place where birds were relentlessly hunted. Even the eggs were not spared. In a census conducted in 2000 they counted just about 5000 birds. That was the nadir. What followed was a phenomenon called Nandkishore Bhujabal and Madhu Behera. Read about that story here and here.
We drove out of the village boundary and onto the embankment that juts into the wetlands for 3 kms. There are two watch towers deeper into the wetlands. The moment we were on the embankment, we were rewarded with a wide vista of swampy fields full of Purple Moorhens. Hundreds of them. Never before seen so many Purple Moorhens together. All my previous sightings have been of singles and pairs. What an incredible sight. A flock of Painted Storks flew over us. A Pallas’ Fishing Eagle was eyeing our car suspiciously from the edge of the road. My birding tour couldn’t have started better!
Madhu Behera is also an accomplished naturalist and guide. You can see his Facebook page here. On reaching Mangalajodi I was thrilled to find that he would be my guide for the day. He is a cult figure and I didn’t lose the opportunity to snap off a picture with the VIP. A quick cup of tea and off we went on Pole Boats.
For the next 3 hrs we went around the wetlands in the Pole Boat. Madhu Behera pointing out the birds all around. Fantastic sighting of Yellow, Cinnamon & Black Bitterns. A few hundred Pheasant-tailed Jacanas. Captured lovely sequential shots of a Purple Herons catching a huge Tyngra fish and devouring it. Blue-tailed Bee-eater, Red-wattled Lapwing, Clamorous Reed Warbler, all manner of Egrets, Dabchick, Lesser and Greater Shellduck, the hours just flew by.
If this was low season when you get to see only the residents, I wonder what it would be like in winter when the hundreds of thousands of migrants arrive. Madhu told me that 300,000 to 400,000 birds of 150 odd species arrive from October onwards. Mangalajodi, I definitely have a winter appointment with you!