Bird-watching in the Sukhna area

The old Hill Cart Road takes one past the small town of Sukhna on the norther fringes of main rail-head for North Bengal at New Jalpaiguri. Then the road climbs past the village of Rongtong and passes - with the tracks of the narrow-guage Darjeeling Himalayan Railay weaving in and out - past other villages like Chunabhati, Tindharia, Ghayabari up and up till it reaches the famous hill-station of Drajeeling after a total of about 55 kilometres. Most people travel to the Drajeeling hills to watch the sun rise and set on the snows of the Kanchenjungha Range. But some people take it into their heads to do bird-wtching for interesting species in the lower foot-hills in the Sukhna-Rongtong area. Since this is close to the Mahananda Wildlife Sanctuary,"anything is possible". And it is the "surprise" element that makes it all the more interesting: while looking casually at a common species suddenly one can catch the glimpse of of something different, something new.

The trip to the Sukhna- Rongtong- Mahananda in March 2021 after over a year of Covid restrictions was certainly envigorating.

Birdwatching at Manglajodi

There are quite a number of good birdwatching areas in India and a very good site for water birds in Eastern India is the Manglajodi site. This is one of the back-waters of the Chilka Lake and is located near the town of Bhubaneshwar in Odisha. Thus it is about six hours train journey from Kolkata and about an hour's journey by vehicle to reach there. It can well be combined with a visit to the temple city of Pur, which is not far away, and the archaeological sites near Bhunabeshwar. It was once a well-known site for poaching of birds but thanks to efforts of Shri Nanda Kishore Bhujbal, a local enthusiast, the poachers were persuaded to become conservationists and thus the Shri Bhagwan Mahavir Pakshi Raskha Samity was formed in 2010. Since then the birds have been provided with strict protection and many of the local men have become boatmen and guides. They have come to acquire excellent knowledge of the habits of birds and the habitat and can make a good living with the stream of bird-watchers and tourists coming to the location.

Thesew few pictures will convey the sense of the nature of the habitat of Manglajodi and the rich birdlife that it offers.