Tamhini Ghat, Mulshi

Tamhini Ghat is one of the many Ghats located in Sahyadris. It connects Mulshi and Kolad. Tamhini being situated in mountain range of Sayadris in western ghat; has fantastic surroundings, waterfalls lakes and dense forests.

This time of year [October end] is a blooming season. Lot of beautiful wildflowers present in the Ghat and surround area. All are offering nectar to butterflies and other insects. This is a perfect time to visit the Ghat as many winter migrant butterfly species can also be see in here.

We did this particular outing on October, 19 2013. We started @ 4:30AM from Pune to reach early in Tamhini. It was Kojagiri Pournima earlier night; and the full moon of Kojagiri just started setting down when we reached in Mulshi. It was a wonderful experience. As moon began setting down and we went further down the road towards Tamhini, the area was completely covered with Mist. It was so thick that we had to stop completely on more than couple of occasions.

#1 Birds – Shikra:

Winter migration of birds is already started. Though Shikra is really not a migrant but is ready to take down some of these small birds.

#2 More Birds:

White-rumped Shama, Malabar Lark & Female of Bushchat.

Shama is the best singing bird present in India. This bird is only found in Western Ghats.

#3 Indian Giant Squirrel:

Indian Giant Squirrels are also called as Malabar Giant Squirrels. In marathi they are called as “Shekroo”. This is a “State Animal of Maharashtra” – if you are not aware!

Nautre at NDA Road, Pune

NDA Road is surrounded by hills and dense trees of different varieties. This offers perfect life for variety of insects, birds and animals. In this blog I am trying to showcase the rich nature of NDA Road.

Almost all kind of different can be seen here. NDA road forest gives the perfect condition for all kind of insects. Very few insects survive on vegetation but most of them hunt for their daily diet needs. You can see of some these insects here.

And yes there are Robberflies around!! they usually prefer scattered vegetation as chances of getting prey is more often. Robberflies are aggressive predators. They are often seen waiting on a perch and attack other insects and take them down in flight. This bahavior gave them a name Robberfly.

Some of these insects would do complete makeover and transform into something else!! Below caterpillars will soon be turning into Butterflies. Many kind of butterflies can be seen including - Swallowtails, Whites & Yellows, Blues & Coppers, Metalmarks, Brush-footed, Skippers and Moths. Some butterflies migrate over long distance, some travel shorter distance and there are few who are permanent residents. Some of the butterflies are considered as pests as their caterpillars can easily ruin crops and plants. Some of them are required for pollination for certain plants. Some of them are even useful as during larval stage they eat harmful insects.

Insects and Butterflies are prey for many other organism including Birds. And hence one can see many varieties of Birds too at NDA road. NDA road is famous for peacocks. But there are more species of Flycatchers nd other visitors. Commonly seen birds include Hornbill, Iora, Robin, Weaver bird, different varieties of Prinias etc.