Notes from the North East - Wakro

We decided to take a chance at birding inspite of the showers the previous night and a cloudy morning ahead. There were plenty of Ashy Wood Swallows swooping above the circuit house with their squeaky calls...

A little ahead this colorful insect was basking itself on a bridge of a small stream

Striated bulbuls were in plenty everywhere in Wakro

Lush greenery around the hills due to rains gave a beautiful feeling to be around there

Pin-tailed pigeon seemed to be waiting for sunshine

Degradation of the forests can seen everywhere which has also brought in huge migrant labour population from other states to Arunachal Pradesh.They are employed as labourers in the tea gardens or orange orchards everywhere. In fact at few of the places we saw more non Arunachalis than the locals

One more birding spot marked

When birds weren't plenty you start aiming your cameras at the butterflies..:-)

This fellow was curious about the strangers in his land and that was definitely not a friendly look!!

Sad truth about how packaging of what we consume is affecting everyone's life

We drove little ahead to Parashuram Kund as the rains did not allow us much birding.

Situated at the deep gorge of river Lohit, the entire area around Prashuram Kund is very windy.No wonder this Horizontal  Axis Wind Turbine seemed to be working really well

Hornbills love this fruit, but did not see any at that time

There were two of the HAWTs there...for some strange reason they looked like a couple, one was silent and the other was full throttle ..:-)

This beauty made me chase for long time before settling down on the leaf

Lohit seem to be flowing ...but isn't as happy as I had seen it in the year 2002.  The construction and excavation have ruined the unique geographical features as a result of the work on the dam, as well as a bridge a few hundred meters away

Malayan giant squirrel (Ratufa bicolor) seemed oblivious about our presence

Just a board without a single soul around...

The rocky outcrop is supposed to be the axe of Parashuram

The setting was beautiful. But was longing for hot cup of tea. Hence, crossed over the bridge and found a tiny shop run by a Nepali to enjoy the tea

Saw this cutie waiting for someone

Being not really a very religious person, I was happy to see the kund from afar..

We returned to Wakro and as planned met "Uncle Moosa" at his Apne library ..more on this very inspiring person will be posted soon on this blog soon..

We were to meet again, but never mind one group photo..:-) 

We decided to check on the routes for Kamlang .We could not but admire this beautiful Mishmi dwelling on our way...

The typical frontal roof of the Mishmi House

The brother n sister were chooo chweet and enjoying their school vacation time.

uuuuhhhhh look at that sweet smile when we requested her to do pose.

At a closeby house saw the well preserved Mithun remnants

The fruit resembled Brinjal  

When the clouds cleared a bit, butterflies started showing up

 A wide variety of wildflowers can also seen around the place.

Emerald dove was pacing across the road. You can see these birds all over Arunachal

Love the pink of the wild banana flower 

 It was time to return back to the circuit house 

The entire landscape was mesmerizing in the setting sun.We decided to explore this beautiful spot again the next day day and finally drove back to the circuit house to retire for the day...

Joys of a responsible traveller

As part of our responsible tourism initiative ,we at IT Nature Club invite our guests to experience the joy of travel with the satisfaction of being partners to bring about a social change to the destination, whenever they travel with us. One such inititaive was creating a library for the Polestar School at Hee, along with Arunaya Foundation during our recently concluded tour of West Sikkim ( Holiday in the monuntains). Polestar School is run by a village committee which overseas the day today functioning of the school.Most of the contributions are made by the villagers themselves and also from their well-wishers. The school has grades 1 to grade 8 with nearly 120 students studying here. As of now the school is run in a rented basement of a commercial buidling with wooden partitions dividing the classes.With the monetory contribution of Arunaya Foundation , the guests who had travelled with us earlier and few well-wishers, we could gift the school 200 books which will go a long way in nurturing their knowledge in various subjects. Mr.Srinivas & Mrs.Sudha , who are part of group travelling with us, were so overwhelmed with the dedication of the teachers and enthusiasm of the students, they immediately gifted a cheque of Rs.5,000/- to be utilized for the infrastructure development of the school.Our profound thanks to Help Tourism for giving us the opportunity to partner with them in helping to create this library for Polestar school. We were really touched by the way the school greeted our guests and put up a small cultural show. 

Here are the other photos clicked during the school function.


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