Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Visit to Forest of Betul area in M.P.

This was a long pending visit since last one year. I reached Betul early in the morning and within hours I was deep in the forest.
I was following the few names mentioned by Late Sh Jamshed Butt in his book but I couldn't find any except Padhar.
I travelled about 200 km in 2 days time and stayed on the bank of Moran river without hearing a single alarm call of any sort.
Most of the area I saw was a young forest. Some of the area were under teak and bamboo plantation. These are one of the best plantations ever I have seen in my life. Here I saw that how villagers are mis using the Forest Act. Now they just makes a tree guard in middle of the forest and through some Mango seeds in it later they erect a temporary hutment in the name of protecting the plants to claim the land for farming later on.
  Only animal sign that I could find along the Moran river were Flying Squirral, Spotted Deer, Barking Deer, Blue Bull, Jackal, and Hyena. I never thought that wildlife density will be so poor here.
Staying in a small hutment was fun. Never realised that there was no electricity. Had a sound sleep of more than 8 hours and by 0530 in the morning I was out to check the mist.
Butterfly density along Moran river was very good. I saw more than 30 no's of Lemon Pansy within an area of 1000 sq ft feeding on wild flowers. Except Grey Pansy all the other pansy butterflies were seen. Yellow Pansy was lowest in number. Plenty of swifts and Bob but I didn't photograph any. For Swifts and Bob identification one should have open and close wing photograph otherwise even the experts will comments "swiftly can't say which swift is this". 
  Lime butterfly was seen in good numbers roosting in middle of forest. There was no citrus tree around so they must be breeding on some other tree specie in the forest. Other butterfly I was happy to photograph was Painted Lady. She was seen in different sizes means scarcity of larval host plant.
   We saw a sign Kodaroti on NH 59. Instantly I became curious to know about this KODAROTI. It is a village about 4.5 km from main road. At one time this village did not had any irrigation facility and villagers were solely dependent on monsoon rain to grow the crops. Only crop they could grow was Kodo, a kind of rice. They use to cook it as rice and use to make the chapati of it by mixing some wheat flour. I don't understand this. To me it looks completely impossible but I am writing here what I heard. So that is how it got it's name Kodaroti.

3 comments:

Dr Rahul said...

Hello Sir, nice to hear that you were in Betul (or are you still here?). Well I am a regular follower of your blog and I am from Padhar Betul. Next time if you are here do give me a call or mail and i hope to catch you. Regards Dr Rahul A.

Bandhavgarh said...

Dear Dr Rahul,
Sure I will. Recently we had few guests from Padhar Hospital staying with us. What kind of wildlife you see around Padhar. No matter big or small pl inform me with sightings. I am looking for Hedgehog and Pangolins.
thanks for reading the blog.Keep on commenting.
Thanks.
satyendra

Dr Rahul said...

Dear Mr Satyendra,
Nice to hear from you. And nice to hear that you got visitors from Padhar Hospital. Jungles around Padhar had abundace of wildlife till few years back.. It has deteriorated alot due to lack of management by forest management and wildlife has suffered at the hands of Pardhi tribes man who settled in a nearby place. About wildlife sightings there are still a few areas where there is good population of Sambhar, Spotted Deers,Chinkara, Muntjac, Leopard, bears, Wildboars are abundant.. Though we do get news about tigers from villages but not sure.. Hedgehog i have never seen here or heard of it and i am quite sure they are not found in this part. Pangolins i have seen on more than one occasion and they are reports i have heard from many places around. I have added you on facebook and we can communicate there..
regards Dr Rahul