Manjira Wildlife Sanctuary

Manjira water is something we started hearing from the day we started looking for an apartment to stay. So this weekend, we decided to unravel the mystery of it by tracing its way back to the source, which took us to the Manjira Reservoir, around 40km from BHEL, Hyderabad. It is also declared as a national wildlife reserve with a lot of water bird population, if you are an avid bird watcher.

We left at around 10am, packing lunch and water (there is no hope of getting anything near the reservoir, unless one know families that live nearby). We reached the town of Sangareddy in 30 minutes, and from there; took a left towards the police camp and drove straight for another 25 minutes to reach the reservoir. There are guiding signboards on the way (with pictures of migratory birds that promise you of great photo opportunities).

On reaching the place, instantly one knows that this is much smaller than the regular wildlife reserve that one is used to. One needs to park your 4-wheeler outside the gates (unless you can talk you way through the 2 guards at the gate). We parked outside and walked in. Once inside there are majorly three activities you could do

1. Watch the mugger crocs
2. Boat ride on the reservoir to watch birds
3. Understand the filtering process of Manjira water and meet the folks who manage it

We could do activities #1 and #3 mentioned above. Couldn’t do the boat ride (prime reason for going there) as the water level was too low for boating and hence had to be satisfied with having a look at the dam and an almost empty reservoir. When asked why the level was low even after ample (to my mind) rainfall, they told me that the Singur Dam upstream holds all the water and releases on a need basis to Manjira. We need more rainfall if Singur needs to open its gates.

The best time to go there is between October and May, which is also when migratory birds come and make Manjira reservoir their home for a while. This offers ample opportunities for bird lovers to watch and shoot (with lens) them. The wildlife office near the dam provides you with information on what to do there. They also provide you a small reference book to identify the birds you would find there and also a library with books on migratory birds, if you wish to refer further!!! The office also holds models of birds and their role in the echo system, which one can explain to kids. 

However, taking a walk in the woods will provide you a chance to sight a lot of birds that are common in urban areas. We could count the voices of 4 distinct birds at a time and could identify Sparrow and Crow Pheasant. Also heard what sounded like a Hornbill (?).

Just behind the wildlife office is the breeding ground for mugger crocs, where you can see the mugger crocodiles and their younger ones basking in soft sunlight, and at times fighting over spots for sunbathing. We were the only ones there so had a lot of fun watching the crocs.

We then proceeded to the dam and saw the sorry state of affairs with the water level, took some pictures there. Looking at the water my son commented “Is this the water we drink?” which gave me the perfect excuse to take him to the filtering unit nearby and show him the water purification process.

The water from the reservoir is routed to the treatment plant nearby, where the water is filtered and purified to make it good for consumption. The engineer was not around, but the man in charge on that day Mr. Mohamed Sheriff was kind enough to explain the operation of the plant to us, provided we did not take any pictures of the facility. He took us around and explained the functioning of the plant that included:

• Chemical treatment: Addition of Alum (to form clumps out of dissolved impurities) and Chlorine (to kill microbes)
• Filtering: 4 layers of sand, gravel, stones etc.

Once treated, the water is pumped to Patancheru and from there routed to various other parts of the city like Lingampalli, and other places where the water department has pumping stations.

After that lesson, we decided to leave the place, planning to comeback during the winter, to match with the itinerary of the migratory birds... 

On the way

Green fields

Way to the wildlife office

New boats for the next season

Not much of a Sanctuary now

Fighting for the Sun

Angry Crocs

Some Specs

Way to the barrage

A very old ride!

Sorry state for boating

The Barrage

Boats

The Barrage

Some urban birds

Mr. Sheriff who was kind enough to explain the operations to us

The treatment plant from outside

Trip to the Nehru Zoological Park, Hyderabad

This was our second outing in Hyderabad and we thoroughly enjoyed it. The scene was the famous Hyderabad zoo and the ideas was to meet all the main residents and the wild cat that was recently brought to the zoo.

The zoo was one of the best that I have seen after the Mysore Zoo. The ones that my son got excited with were—the large sea tortoise, the Siberian white tiger, the leopards, the hyena, the royal Bengal tiger,  lion, giraffe, the Sambar (I suspect just because of its name—“so tell me vappa (dad) – now is Sambar curry veg or non-veg?”), peacock, the baboon, the rhinoceros and the macaw parrot.

We reached the zoo around 11am and found it a little crowded, may be because it was the next day to Ramadan festival. Lot of kids chaperoned by elderly were keeping the security guards and zoo wardens busy.

If you are visiting on a 4-wheeler, there are two options—(a) go driving right into the zoo with a Rs.1000 ticket or (b) park your car outside—either inside the zoo gates, near the ticket counter or outside the zoo gates on the main road. If you cannot walk much and need to carry food, water etc, I would suggest you to go in with the car, but you would have to park appropriately walk around and come back and take the car to the next spot. You might endup walking as much as you would do otherwise, except if you have a chauffeur (in our case, myself).

There are other means to move around in the zoo

1. An eco- and animal friendly option is to rent bicycles within the zoo (nice idea from the zoo authorities) and ride anywhere
2. Take the electric cart drive which will take you to all the main places. You can get on and get off anywhere as the cart capacity allows
3. You can take the toy train drive which again traces the same route as the road, and
4. Last, but not the least, walk it up

The zoo is arranged such that you enter and take a left, stop were needed, move around in a circle and reach back to the entrance, where you started. There are some places to find refreshments inside as you walk by the cages and enclosures. However, if you need some serious food, you need to go near the last leg of the trip where you will find a restaurant.

We were not able to see the entire zoo as it started raining towards the end and it was too crowded to get into the train or cart. I also missed some sections that I would try to cover in my next trip like – the train ride, the lion safari, the natural history museum and some sections like the bison and the reptiles.

Here are some photos from the trip. The photos were taken from a Nikon D50 (i know, it's old) 28-80mm, that was handed down to me by a friend when he upgraded to a better shot. He runs a service apartment in Trivandrum, that I found real value for money, if one has to spend a few days visiting Kerala.