If you happen to be at the Punjabwadi bus stop in Deonar (Mumbai), just outside Saras Baug society, do pause for a minute. Or two. Over and above the din of the traffic, you will hear another kind of noise—lots of screeching and screaming. No, no, don’t look around for the source of this noise, look up into the trees and this is what you’ll see:
You will see hundreds of bats in the trees, screeching and fighting and doing whatever else that bats do. The bats are present all through the year at this location, which is a busy highway. Though their numbers diminish during the monsoons, they are back in full strength once the rainy season is over.
I saw these bats for the first time about 4 years back. I was so surprised to see them that I ended up standing there, looking into the trees for quite some time. In the process, I also collected a sizeable crowd who started looking up into the trees with me 😀
Every morning, when I get off the bus that brings me to work at the Punjabwadi bus stop, I say a hello to the bats. I also say a silent prayer for their protection as one never knows when the trees are going to disappear. Apparently, they come in the way of a road widening project. 😦
Mumbai Lens is a photographic series which, as the name suggests, is Mumbai-centric and is an attempt to capture the various moods of the city through my camera lens. You can read more posts from this series here.
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when i saw all those bats, I remembered my nickname as a child ‘vavval’, because I used to eat only fruits and nothing else. 😀
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Oh ! I used to be called a vavval for another reason: I would not sleep easily at night 🙂
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On one of Does trips I recollect seeing hundreds of bats on a tree.
It was in a semi jungle park . The sighting was awesome.Good observation for a Mumbaikar to hear & see in this busy – noisy life.
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We saw them outside the guesthouse in Badami last year. Hundreds and hundreds of them.
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OMG Sudha… These bats look like fruits hanging from the tree! :O
And its so unlike to see such amazing things in a mega-city! Lucky you! 🙂
Love,
Indie 🙂
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Yes, it was an OMG moment for me too when I saw them. Mumbai is full of surprises like this and I keep discovering such interesting things all the time.
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vow!!! look at u.. such a nice capture.. l am praying with u for the bats 🙂 🙂
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The bats need all the prayers that they can get. Thanks Sunita
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Wow
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Yes, it is a Wow moment, isn’t it?
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Road widening at the expense of the bats? What a batty idea!
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Yes, its totally batty 😀
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Lovely
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Yes, it is lovely and I love to just stand there for a few seconds in the morning to look up at them.
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Simply beautifully captured shots…lovely!
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Thanks, Kalyan 🙂
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nice pics! and those are not the only places u can find bats in chembur!.. we have lots in chedda nagar too.. and u can see many like this in the fine arts campus! last week, i saw a huge crowd gathered on the new skywalk at chembur station… and it turned out there was a bat hanging from a tree! half the crowd thought it was some unknown creature! and when someone announced that this was a bat, they were even more interested and the crowd just went on increasing! i was amazed to see the kind of enthu generated by a bat!
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Poor bat. I hope it was not too traumatised by the attention showered upon it.
It’s nice to know that there are still places for these birds to live in a place like Mumbai.
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My experience with bats was in Daulatabad fort… inside the secret passage. hundreds of them hanging from the ceiling that was not very high. It was scary.
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I can imagine that. The bats look quite cute and friendly from where I see them everyday. I definitely would not want to see them the way you saw them.
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Read in yestday’s newspaper that this is the year of the bat. Must be a fascinating scene right?
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Hmm… the year of the bat. And therefore a batty year ;-). Yes, it is quite a sight and an astonishing one as it is on a highway.
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I have seen this in Kathmandu – I remember in the Ministry of Social Justice, there used to be what I thought were a million bats screeching, hanging around blissfully.
Lovely pictures 🙂
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Welcome to my blog, and thank you so much for stopping by and commenting. I am discovering that bats are far more common than say, crows or pigeons 🙂
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