Passionate Birders and Wildlife Professionals from different parts of North India ta Pong Dam Lake for countingof Migratory Birds

After regular follow-ups for last one year, finally I attended official Bird Counting activities at Pong Wetland during Jan'2012. Initially it was more of a Photography trip for me, but finally it proved as a very knowledgeable & inspirational trip. Apart from learning lot of stuff about birds, I got an opportunity to meet various birders and Wildlife Professionals. Let's know more about these folks and how they think about nature & these colorful birds...

A photograph of Sarbjeet Kaur, who is an active member of Chandigarh Birder Club and travel a lot for birding. She was carrying this huge Tripod and Canon Camera with 100-400mm lens all the time. On each day, we walked around 10 kilometers around shorelines of Pong Dam Lake in zig-zag manner. I was amazed to see her enthusiasm that the way she was taking care of her gadgets apart from 100% contributions in counting birds. And believe me, it's not at all a easy thing to walk with such heavy gadgets...

Here is whole team of Chandigarh Bird Club !!! 

 ( Sarbjeet Kaur, Rima Dhillon and Navjit ). After talking to these folks, I realized that they keep traveling or at least keep planning birding activities around Chandigarh. After Bird Counting at Pong Dam Lake, they had to go to Nangal for some other Birding event. After this, there was something planned on weekend for World Bird Day !!! Above all, I think there is something happening on 12th Feb as well. If you are truly interested in knowing what all is happening at Chandigarh Bird Club, join  them on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/groups/166751020061454/

Here comes Mr. Rahul Jain with his Gadgets for watching birds at Pong Dam Lake ! He is one of the member of Delhi Bird Club... As per him, he is not as active in birding as other members of Delhi Birding Club are. During this trip, he also visited Dharmshala & Mcleodganj. Apart from Birding he is keen interest in History and Indian Heritage. He was the one who had come to Pong with full plan of visiting Monolithic Temples of Masroor and most of us also joined him.

Here are four birders who were in our troop of two teams, which used to start from one point. Everyday we started from one point and moved in opposite directions. During these counting sessions, one section covered by a team is done by another team, to avoid counting errors. Although this counting can't be 100% correct, but professionals known what plus or minus needs to be done as per geographical location with different characteristics in terms of location, weather and other things. I am sure you must have noticed snow covered Dhauladhar Mountain Ranges in background of this Photograph.

Mr. Devender Dhadwal and Mr. Satish Gupta...

Mr. Satish Gupta is Divisional Forest Officer in Hamirpur and Pong comes under this department. It seems Mr. Dhadwal and Gupta go to Pong shores during early mornings & evenings. Especially before bird counting during winter season every year. One of them using binoculars to identify birds and Mr. Gupta is capturing the birds for exact detailing at home. Doing activities like counting, conservation etc without disturbing lives of these birds is commendable. 

Mr. Dhadwal is Range Officer in Wildlife Department of Pong Wetland. He has been spending some pleasant moments with these birds for last 9 years. Over last 9 years, he has spent significant time in studying various bird species found around Pong Water Reservoir and also written a book called - 'Wild Wings of Pong'. Recently Mr. Dhadwal has got promotion and people of Pong don't want him to move to other regions of Himachal Pradesh...

Mr. Navjit and Rahul have started Bird Counting for the day. This photograph was taken on second day when both of them had to recount birds in our region covered last day. And we were going into their region to reconfirm if they did the right job :) ...

Various officers from Forest and Wildlife Department of Himachal Pradesh also participated in this Counting activity. There were 21 teams were built to do counting in different regions of Pong Dam Lake. Each team had approximately 4-6 folks apart from Boatmen. Above Photograph shows Mr. Bhupinder Rana, DFO, Kullu. He is considered as knowledgeable wildlife Professional, who believe in ground work. Apart from his main profession, he loves birding & Photographing various birds in Himalayan ranges.

Here Mr. Ashwani Kaul talking to Navjit about next plan of action on first day. Plan was to cover first stretch by boat and then walk around shorelines, as more birds can be found around the shores of Pong Dam Lake. As a photographer primarily, it was extremely difficult to shoot birds fro boat. Problems increase when you are using zoom lenses and there is no scope of using tripod or monopod. Motorboats are still better and shake is not much.

All Birder unpacking their Binoculars, Cameras, Tripods and Telescopes etc. View of Snow capped Dhauladhar Mountain Ranges was spectacular. At times, I was thinking to go on other side for clicking some shots of Pong Dam Lake with these mountains in background. But we were their for bird counting and not for photography :)

Everyone working on different flocks of birds. Here was a huge flock of Bar Headed Goose in the fields, while some of us were focusing on Ruddy Shelducks.

It's evening time and folks are still ranging their binoculars to ensure that nothing is missed within their boundaries. We used to cover around 10 kilometers daily in zig-zag manner, which would be more walkable distance...

Finally time to pack up and go back to Wildlife Guest House for evening bonfire and general chit-chat. Guest-House is located in a wonderful location surrounded by trees.


More PHOTO JOURNEYs to come from Pong Dam, so keep checking this place...