Velavadar
Velavadar National Park is bisected
by the main road effectively making for two almost equal parts. One is a n immense grassland with a few man-made water holes and the other has a huge lake where a
lot of water birds are to be found amidst... what else, grassland of course!
Both the areas are wonderful as far as sightings go.
My post on the birds of Velavadar is here.
‘Blackbuck National Park’ at Velavadar really
lives up to its name... the place is literally overrun with Blackbucks. Some of
their herds must be numbering many many hundreds even over a thousand I think!
The antics of the kids kept us in stitches... the males so full of themselves
and spoiling for a game of sparring were very quick to lock antlers and the
females just ignored all this machismo with utter disdain!!
The other regular and populous
inhabitant of this park is the ‘Neel Gai’ which is Asia’s largest antelope.
More decorous than the bucks, the dark grey males mostly band together and the
females bring up the calves together... separately.
The first evening itself yielded the
jungle cat which was on top of our radar for the place... In fact, not just
one, we happened on two separate individuals, one in each part! Early the next
morning gave us immediate views of the wolf...
Now that that was out of the way, we
thought that a hyena sighting would complete the MUST SEE list of this place.
Unfortunately, that was not to be and all three safaris we undertook there were
fruitless as far as the hyenas are concerned. All the same, we were a happy
bunch as we bid adieu to one of the finest grassland ecosystems we have seen in
India. Some of the images from there....
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| Black buck male |
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| Jungle cat |
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| Female Black buck |
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| Neel gai with calf |
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| Indian grey wolf |
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| Practice!! |
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| Neel Gai or the Blue Bull |
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| The female |
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| Frolicking around!! |
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