“Someone's sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long
time ago.” - Warren Buffett
Shibpur Botanical Garden is located on the banks of River Hoogly just beside the Vidyasagar Setu and comes under Howrah.
The garden opens up at 10 am and closes at 5 pm. I and my friend decided to visit the garden, so we started our journey at 9 o clock in the morning from Behala. We took metro from Rabindra Sarobar to Rabindra Sadan and from there we boarded a bus going to B.Garden(Botanical Garden). We reached Botanical Garden by 11.15 am.
The entry to the garden requires buying tickets which costs 10 rupees per head and if do still photography we need to pay 30 rupees. So after buying tickets we entered the garden.
The garden is huge over 109 hectares of land which has 12,000 specimens of rare plants and trees. So we started with the straight road leading us to the pond where lily flowers bloom.
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| Lily pond near Botanical Garden main gate |
There were innumerable ponds or lakes in the garden. In one such we captured the Egret.
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| Egret hunting in the pond |
We tried to capture as many shots as possible but it flew away and moved to another lake some distance in front of us.
We walked some distance and encountered a bridge. Under that we managed to capture a species of heron trying to catch insects and small fishes in the lake. There were egrets too in the pond. It was one of the best ponds to find wild birds in the entire garden.
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| Species of heron in the lake |
Then we took the road leading us to the Botanical Garden ferry ghat. There we entered a garden which is prohibited for normal public to enter. It is a garden containing different species of small plants maintained by the authority. We talked with the gardener and he gave us information of few plants. We captured pictures of the "Water Pump" plant. Its white flowers were so beautiful and different insects were flying around the flower.
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| Red coloured leafs of plants in the garden |
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| Water Pump plant in the garden |
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| Small Insects in the garden |
The gardener also showed us the small banana tree in the garden. It was a different species of plant not indigenous to India. He also showed us few other small plants he was maintaining. There was a building beside where people study about plants.
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| Banana Tree in the garden |
We also captured many new types of migratory birds in the lakes.
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| Migratory birds in the lake |
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| Migratory birds in the lake |
We also captured many other plants in restricted gardens.
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| A type of moth in the garden |
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| Flying butterfly in the garden |
We also captured few species of birds in the garden which we had no idea of.
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| Birds in the garden |
Our main interest was the different types of birds which generally visit these places during winter and we found all of these. Some of the birds are quite common like the kite.
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| Kite on the branches of the tree in the garden |
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| Migratory birds in the garden |
We also spotted this particular species of migratory birds in abundance. These birds stay on the shallow beds of the lake and capable of walking on the water.
We also visited the Great Banyan Tree in the garden but it was quite late and shadows made it impossible for us to capture the garden properly but overall we were quite fascinated by the different flora and fauna in the place and people should visit the place. This is one place which no one should miss when visiting Kolkata! If you are someone who is staying in Kolkata then do visit the place because the place is the only one near Kolkata where Nature is not disturbed and where you can respire well without any dust and soot. After staying in Nature's Lap for four hours we decided that we should return home.
Photography: Riddhisattwa Bhattacharya
Assisted by: Angik Roy
Camera: Canon EOS 600D
Lens: Canon 50-250mm lens
Place: Shibpur Botanical Garden
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