A visit to Rehekuri Sanctuary

Near Pune

Maharashtra

 The idea of visiting this  not-so-well-known   sanctuary of  Black bucks was born out of a casual chat with one of my friends who has a photo shop in Pune town.He used to print my wild life photos and he had asked me one day"Andrew Sir ,did you ever visit Rehekuri Sanctuary and I was pleasantly surprised  and  said no .When he showed some of his stunning  pictures of black bucks shot at Rehekuri,I was astonished and was little ashamed of myself not knowing this place which is so close to Pune .

just a 150kms away .!Then I decided that my next trip must be "Rehekuri Sancturay"

It was last Saturday i.e 3rd August 2013, I finally decided to follow my heart and visit Rehekuri - the sanctuary for Blackbucks.

Fortunately for me ,one of nephews was in Pune (Based at Chennai) who is also an ardent photographer,,,professional fellow actually..doing lots of product photographic assignments all over India for leading Companies besides his fashion photography also.So I asked him to accompany me and he readily agreed atonce with lots of excitement.

So we with one more friend with equal interest started off early morning around 5AM .

The journey took unusually more than 5 1/2 hours instead of 4 hours at maximum..it was due to bad roads,passing through narrow village roads..and finally reached Rehekuri well past 12.00 pm.

Rehekuri Blackbuck Sanctuary is situated in Karjat taluka in Ahmednagar district. The area of the sanctuary is 2.17 Sq. Kms.

Biodiversity:

Flora:

The forest type is dry deciduous scrub forest. The main species are Acacia catechu (Khair), Acacia sp. (Hivar), Dalbergia latifolia (Sisoo), Santalum album (Chandan), Ziziphus mauritiana (Ber), Carissa opaca (Karwand), Alysicarpus bupleurifolius, Cyathocline purpurea, Eriocauion diane, Merremia emarginata, Cucumis melo, Cyperus kyllingia, Striga densiflora, Mareilea minuta.

Fauna:

The area is rich in grassland fauna. The main species are Antilope cervicapra Linn (Blackbuck), Gazelia bennetti (Chinkara), Canis lupus (Wolf), Vulpes bengalensis (Indian Fox).

So I was in - no entry fees, no security check post, no scanning if I was taking a gun inside although it was my tripod and there is also no fencing so protect from poachers. Worrying on how I entered the sanctuary I walked almost a kilometre inside the sanctuary searching for blackbucks. The trees are scattered so it shouldn't have been that difficult to spot a blackbuck. There's a tower in middle of the sanctuary where you can climb to get on top, sort of an observatory and yo ! I saw herd of deers but still no sign of blackbucks. I was wandering in the sanctuary looking for all possible clues to see a blackbuck; it was getting warmer as the sun was rising and time for blackbucks to roam in the woods was near to over and it was time for them to rest so no more hopes to see a blackbuck.

 As I was about to give up my hopes and commence my return journey ,suddenly to

my utter astonishments and happiness,I saw a  herd of more than 200 to 300 in numbers at a distance of say 100 mtrs.. just in front of me ..standing and looking at  me with a bewilderd ,surprised look.And without wasting any time else I may lose the sight of them any moment,started shooting them ofcource with my camera.I was  lucky to capture few images of them before they vanished as suddeeny as they appeared.