A Day in Vedanthangal

It might sound funny but this was one of the places I longed to see since the day I studied about this sanctuary in my school days.

“Maintaining noiseless environment is more important than celebrating Diwali and that too for birds?”

“What makes these birds special?”

“I want to see these birds!! “

I remember saying those words back then!

I have been in Chennai for last 4 years I had never been to this place as it takes 3 hours to reach there. Honestly, I totally forgot about this place.

At last on 13/2/16, we (my friends and me, somehow convinced them 😛 ) decided to go to Vedanthangal as it was the end of the season. Also, it was a day before Valentine ’s Day, so the place was a bit crowded.

Vedanthangal Bird Sanctuary is a 30-hectare (74-acre) protected area located in the Kancheepuram District of the state of Tamil Nadu, India. The sanctuary is about 75 kilometers from Chennai on National Highway 45 (NH45), south of Chengalpattu. More than 40,000 birds (including 26 rare species), from various parts of the world, visit the sanctuary during the migratory season every year.

Vedanthangal is the oldest water bird sanctuary in the country. Vedanthangal in the Tamil language means ‘hamlet of the hunter’.

The best time to visit this sanctuary is from November to March. During this time, birds are seen busy building and maintaining their nests

When I entered the bird sanctuary within 10 min I felt very ashamed because I couldn’t identify even a single bird. There were a plethora of bird species, some were resting on the trees and others just circling in the sky. It was a wonderful view but I felt very sorry for myself for not being able to distinguish between them.

“Next time if you go to some new place do some research about that place,” I said to myself.

Because going out and just seeing things won’t help you to learn anything. If you want to learn new things then you should know what you are looking at rather than its external appearances.

The rest of the day passed by clicking pictures with my friends.

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PC : sivamoorthy ( missing one :P)

I am not a photo freak but I love to have pictures that tell the entire story of the day. In fact, my Google drive is filled with those memories of last four years of my life.

Sometimes I am jealous of these birds;

They can fly to where ever they want.

They don’t have any visa restrictions.

No government can stop them from entering their country.

They can go to every corner of this world.

This made me think – “Why did humans divide the world with boundaries?” I feel every man/woman born in this world has all rights to go anywhere on earth. They are the citizens of the world.

Then why restrict their rights to one country?

“Money corrupted everything”

I recently found out about the “world passport” which states every person born in this world is a citizen of the world and he has every right to go to every country if he possesses the world passport. This made me go like wowww !!

But the happiness was short-lived, as holding the world passport is illegal in most of the countries and if one traveled using world passport he/she would end up in prisonL

I desperately hope that someday, the world passport will be accepted by every country! That will be the day we might get one of biggest rights to travel anywhere just like these birds!!

— Yoki