About me and this ‘log’…

February 16th, 2011

Name: Alok Mahendroo

Location: Kalatope-Khajjiar wildlife sanctuary, Chamba, Himachal Pradesh, India .

I live in a beautiful Himalayan village which falls within the official boundary of the rich Kalatope-Khajjiar wild life sanctuary, located in the vicinity of Dalhousie, Chamba district in Himachal Pradesh. The total area of the sanctuary is only 69 Sq kms, which is going to be denotified soon and reduced to 12 sq kms officially. But within this 12 sq km area lies a wealth of bio-diversity, which has been lying largely unexplored till now.

As soon I am out of my village, the realization of the beauty of nature is apparent.. and one cannot help but notice the beauty around. I was not exactly a nature freak, botanist or a zoologist, but living here has made me observe and appreciate all living things , big or small… I just wish to share these observations with other people and hope they too will appreciate it as I do.. and help in stopping the destruction of this place….

Wild flowers, fungi, lichens, beetles, birds, bugs, animals, tracking signs… there is a lot one can see and learn when one goes into a forest.. in fact there is not a moment’s boredom. Unfortunately I don’t own any fancy camera… but… whatever I have managed to capture with my old Nikon 2100… is out here for people to see…

While I am certainly not an expert.. at best described as an enthusiast.. I find that lack of information on the Indian species (especially in the lesser known areas of the Himalayas) to be seriously deficit, especially in this day and age of information sharing and availability on the Internet. This web-log will be an endeavour to share whatever knowledge I have been able to gather, of course with help from a lot of good people especially, among them are from http://www.mushroomobserver.org , http://www.flowersofindia.net, https://groups.google.com/group/indiantreepix, http://www.mushroomexpert.com etc..

The web-log while providing information about various species, does not wish to duplicate the efforts of these forums.. but instead is localized documentation of whatever I find during my rambles in nature, concentrating on the areas I am visiting, which right now is the Kalatope-Khajjiar wildlife sanctuary, I am documenting whatever species I find by month… so that anyone who has a chance to observe them at a particular time can either find them by the month or by the tag search….

Please note: all medical references given on the blog is through Internet research and the author does not guarantee the authenticity of such data.

Any error while not intentional can always be corrected…. so if anyone finds any data which requires to be corrected please post a comment or e-mail me at forwildlife AT gmail DOT com