Waterhole Census

This was our third year to attend water hole census at Melghat Tiger Reserve in Maharashtra India. Watchtowers are built near water holes and volunteers sit at 5 o'clock in the evening to 5 o'clock next day morning counting and recording the animals.


This activity is conducted by forest department on every full moon night in the month of May when the jungle is dry and water is scarce. This year my son Aniket with his friends Sagar, Akash and Pranav sat on one watch tower and me and my friend Ravi sat on the other one.



Throughout the night, we heard calls of Hyna, Samabar(Local name), Peocock and various birds. We spotted wild boar, jungle foul, barking deer and giant gliding squirrel.

Hemalkasa visit and me..

Hi,
I am Nitin Joshi from Jalgaon Maharashtra. I love going to jungles and I have spent nights on watch towers looking and feeling wild animals. On 1st of March I had gone to a place called HEMALKASA some 200Kms from Chandrapur, Maharashtra, India. Here Dr.Prakash Amte, son of late Shri. Baba Amte runs a hospital and school for tribal people absolutly free of cost. It is situated in deep jungle. The senior Amte couple is here since 33 years fighting against all odds and today Hemalkasa is reckoned after Dr.Amte.

This is an unbelievable project and the softness of these great people can be felt if one visits there. Dr.Amte also runs an official orphanage (permitted by Forest Deptt) for animals. We were lucky to play with Lepord cubs. I took nearly 1000 photos of animals, Landscape etc.

Here are some of the snaps.