Birding ! Driving ! Soul-searching !: Drive from Kolkata to Kharagpur

I was stationed in Kolkata for about 20 days and I had a marriage reception to attend in Kharagpur. Since I had my car with me, all the more reason to drive instead of taking a public transport. Kharagpur is not very far and the roads are also supposedly good. The total distance one way is around 150 km and it takes about 3 hours if you drive casually.

Most of the people take a break somewhere around Kolaghat, there are a lot of restaurant options available if you want to halt there for a quick bite or a cup of tea.

On our return journey though, it took us only 2.5 hours, as we didn’t take a break. It was late night too, so Kolkata city traffic also wasn’t that big a problem. However, that didn’t stop us from getting stuck at Santraganchi. That stretch is a dreadful one, and is always blocked by heavy vehicle movement. Other than that, the highway roads were quite good and it was a good experience overall.

Total to-and-fro toll was Rs. 330.

Once you step foot in the eastern region of the country, things are not what they seem elsewhere. The entire Gangetic delta plain in so fertile, you can see green everywhere, with small ponds and water bodies all across. This makes the place so rich in avian population, that you can spend a couple of hours on the terrace and you will end up getting beautiful shots of birds without much effort. The number of species are more, the number of individuals in all those species is also more, their activity is so high that you can possibly get all the prefect angles in the perfect lighting. And most of all, if you are lucky to have an access to a terrace that is at a third or fourth floor, then you are in for a treat.

3rd and 4th floor terrace gives you just the perfect height to reach the top level for most of the trees. You are just at the right level with the tree canopies, giving you mostly eye-level shots of birds, which you won't get if you are standing at ground level or any level higher than 3rd or 4th.

Incidentally, this time I realized that my relatives' house both in Santoshpur and Barrackpore were 3 floor houses. Gives me an ideal spot from the terrace to click the birds every morning. So, for 20 days this turned out to be my routine every morning. Get up in the morning, have your breakfast and spend 2 hours on the terrace. And would you believe the quality of the photographs that I managed to click? Yes, I agree some of these shots were one-timer lucky, but most of the birds gave me multiple chances to click on multiple occasions. I could literally pick and choose which photos I wanted to keep and which one to discard.

Here are all the pics from my stay in Kolkata and Barrackpore.

This bird is indeed so beautiful with such a melodious song, and it gave me so many opportunities to click it up-close. I was glad to be staying in a house with such close proximity to a tree where this bird used to spend so much of time everyday. Even after so many years of birding, I haven't yet got a chance to get a great picture of the Indian Golden Oriole, but atleast I got a shot of Black-hooded this time. The picture came out so good that I don't have to worry about beating this pic ever again.