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| Entrance.... |
Whenever I get tired of the daily hectic schedule, I love to take a break. In my case taking a break means travelling and exploring new places. So this year on the month of April, along with my younger brother, Avijit and his wife Priyanka , I visited Chintamoni Kar Bird Sanctuary at Narendrapur, South 24 Parganas.
I heard about the sanctuary long ago but never got time to visit in person. So when we were searching for places to visit I proposed the idea of visiting Chintamoni Kar Bird Sanctuary. As per plan, on one cozy Sunday afternoon we kicked off our motorcycles at around 3 P.M. If I go by my watch it took us exactly twenty minutes from my place to reach the park. This park is not known to many as of now, so one can enjoy much needed solitude away from the buzz of the city life. The parking facilities for the two wheeler's are good. The entry fee to the park is fifty rupees which one have to pay at the entrance.
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| History behind CKBS.... |
Now before telling my experience, I would like to narrate the history behind Chintamoni Kar Bird Sanctuary in brief. This park was initially known as Kayaler Bagan after the name of its owner. This was the prime habitat for many exotic bird species. Chintamoni Kar was a renowned sculpturer and activist. He felt the necessity of preserving the grandeur of the place, so he urged the forest department to take necessary steps. He feared the worst that some day the private owner might sell the property for construction and destroy the habitat as a whole. In 2005 the government responded to his appeal and bought the area from the private owner and gave it a status of Sanctuary.
Since then this area served as home to many exotic bird species and a hot spot for bird lovers. Some important species are Asian Koel, Brown Fish Owl, Black Drongo, Ashy Drongo, etc.
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| Selfie time... |
Now coming back to my experience, when I entered the sanctuary the first thing that I noticed was that the place was very humid and the precipitation level was very high. I was soaked to my skin. Those who have been to any wildlife park know that spotting animals is really a tricky affair let along birds which requires a lot of perseverance and patience indeed. My fellow travellers started losing patience as they could not spot a single bird among the canopies. As a result the inevitable happened & just after ten minutes into the park my friend and his wife started complaining.
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| Standing infront of a local hut.... |
I tried to console them by saying that patience is the virtue to success. Chintamoni Kar Bird Sanctuary is only 64 square kilometre area wise and we tracked each and every corner of the place in order to catch a glimpse of the exotic birds but it seemed that luck was not on our side. I have a nature of speaking to the forest guards in person to learn about their experience inside the park. However to my utter surprise, I got to know from one the guards that there are not many birds but a large variety of reptiles, spiders and butterflies inside Chintamoni Kar. Some of the commonly seen are Monitor Lizard, Snakes of different varieties, Garden Spider , Wolf Spider, Grey Panzy Butterfly, Common Leopard Butterfly, etc.
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| List of Fauna.... |
In terms of spotting birds the parks offered us with only disappointment, but being a jungle lover I know that it is only a part and parcel of the journey. We left the park with a sad face but the serenity, solitude and tranquillity of the park in-spite of being situated in the heart of the city touched my heart remarkably. I left the place only with a promise to visit again in future.
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| What are you waiting for.... |
(Picture Courtesy : Piangshuk Mukherjee and Priyanka Sardar)
