yet again ... getting lost ... then enjoying self-discovery ...

Strangling a wildlife rich area The India Bangladesh Border is to be fenced. This is the status. India’s Supreme Court has set up a “Coordination Committee” to expedite work on the border fence with Bangladesh . A two-member bench of Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice N Fali Nariman has set up the committee. It will be headed by Union Home Ministry’s Border Management Secretary and include the Chief Secretary of Assam. This committee will work out all issues related to border fencing. The committee will find out how to complete the fencing work within the stipulated timeframe.  http://bdnews24.com/neighbours/2015/11/06/indian-sc-sets-up-committee-to-push-for-border-fence-with-bangladesh There are some problem areas where work is pending including the stretch in Mizoram. This is where the Dampa Tiger Reserve (DTR) comes in. Some stretches of the road are pending on account of multiple reasons. These include the road under discussion in Mizoram’s Mamit district;...

~ Some glimpses of the few days of thrill ~   ~ Moving on a raft along the India – Bangladesh border ~ ~ In the Dampa Tiger Reserve ~ ~ Eclectic North East publishes this post in its March 2018 issue ~ The River. So little do we city bred know of a river! This stuck me on the first day of our trip and would re-visit me each day of the trip. Colours where the happy streams came down to join the river we were akin to a nature’s flowing palette; a poetic reality! Insects came out in no small numbers when our rafts bumped into vegetation along the banks. They, as if, checked us out and troubled no further. The only bridge we passed under still carried the weight of the last seasons flood.  It was neither easy nor very pleasant to imagine ourselves on the rafts with that form of the river. Within the 60 km stretch the river’s width varied from 4 to 40 meters and it had different sounds, sounds I could not comprehend. The water is in ripples where it is too sha...

Walking up and down in Dampa Tiger Reserve is rewarding for sure ~ This list is compiled over multiple trips, long chats, sessions at tea-stalls, rides in pick-ups and many kua’s including few times with the nut of the oil palm! Image Credit: Pu Zakhuma Ashy Bulbul Ashy Drongo Ashy headed Green Pigeon Ashy Woodswallow Asian Barred Owlet Asian Fairy Bluebird Asian Koel Asian Paradise-flycatcher Barred Cuckoo Dove Black Bulbul Black Drongo Black Eagle Black Kite Black Shouldered Kite Black-backed Forktail Black-crested Bulbul Black-hooded Oriole Black-naped Monarch Black-rumped Flameback Black-winged Cuckooshrike Blue Rock Thrush Blue Whistling Thrush Blue-bearded Bee-eater Blue-eared Barbet Blue-throated Barbet Blue-winged Leafbird Bronzed Drongo Brown Shrike Brown-throated Treecreeper Previous pieces on Dampa Frontier Despatch National Geographic Traveller Sanctuary Asia Cattle Egre...

Have you seen Oil Palm in Tiger Reserve? And other questions on Dampa This is the unedited version of the piece published in Deccan Herald . Recent trips to Dampa have been followed with a series of interesting questions, by friends, on the landscape. Dampa is often referred to as being different from other Tiger Reserves be it management or tiger sightings? Why is it so? There are multiple reasons. To begin with, Dampa is not an atypical Tiger Reserve in the lines of Ranthambore or Corbett where one enjoys a drive a four wheel vehicle; here one walks up and down the forest. On sightings the Indian Express during September 2015 reports ‘ Senior forest officials in the state and conservationists who have worked there admit there have been no tiger sightings in Dampa for decades, and no tiger has been caught by numerous camera traps although a large assortment of other wildlife — including smaller wild cats — has been .” Management issues include lack of single managemen...

Frontier Despatch carries this article in its 1 st April, 2016 issue. Some of the participants were handling binoculars for the first time and I needed to go slow. We began with the basics. I shared of how beautiful the birds appear when seen with binoculars as compared to that with the naked eye. Then moved on to using them; wearing them over neck and adjusting their width, observing objects with either of and both the eyes, selecting objects to view – far and otherwise, and putting focus to use. We deliberated on the need to keep them away from moisture ( especially in a place like Mizoram ) and, as is the case with binoculars, how not to ‘clean’ them. As we walked more we learnt how to make better use of the bird-book as also discussed body-parts of birds, local names and specific species – bulbul ( for example ) became Black Bulbul or the Red-vented Bulbul. One participant also brought a Mizo book on wildlife to look up local names – it surely helped. I observed that some o...