If you are a bird lover and you are staying in Pune or near by then you must visit kumbhargaon near bigwan. If you do photography then it will be added advantage. Generally most of people come here for photography. Bigwan is located on Solapur highway and with a distance of 110 kms from Pune and from there you have to skip the highway and enter some village roads of about 6-8kms to go to kumbhargaon. Here you can find backwaters of ujani dam floating so calmly and gently. Every year different types of birds from other countries migrating here in winter season in hunt of warmer climates for nesting and breeding. In those flamingo is most popular bird which attracts every photographer. Generally season lasts from December to February. in this village you may find 3 to 4 points or you can say guiding agencies who will provide boating into the waters but Kranti flamingo point is the most preferred and visited network
Our journey:
We are two people. Myself Manikanta and my friend Rajesh planned to go in bike as it is not much distant. We contacted the concern person at Kranti flamingo point named Kiran and he explained everything to us. He suggested is to visit by 6:00AM such that majority of boats go together into the waters at that time, hence so they will make them fly for capturing photos when the group is in airborne and also we can witness sunrise while riding in boat. We also taught the same and also for photography mornings are the best to avoid sun glares. But in morning cold is too high and so we started at 5:30AM on bike. We took the bike on rent for Rs600 per day at boong.com located in Kothrud. You can contact him on phone by 9011589833. As temperatures are low we drive very slowly and reached there by 9:00AM. Immediately after reaching we contacted Kiran and he arranged the boat on point. By the way you also can contact him on phone by 8605347070. The boat chargers are ₹800 for one hour and 6 people can comfortably sit. We are two only as for photographing we taught it is the best. He took us into the waters around few points where birds grouped and hunting some fish and also he explained us few details of birds that he know. We took few stand still shots and few airborne shots of the birds. Flamingo, duck hawk, glossy ibis, long beak duck, different types of cranes, gulls were witnessed here.
After completing the boat ride we went back to shelter at Kranthi point and we witnessed most of the families who completed the boat ride in morning itself still spending some quality time by sitting here with their kids and enjoying the food particularly fish , very famous here served by the Kranthi point by the way paid only and also watching the backwaters by admiring the view. We also ordered fish curry but not readily available. And one more thing is you can also stay here over night by paying ₹700.
We collected our bags here and left for Baramati which is 40kms from here. Most of people go for zincara which is near by about 20kms to witness deers in wild life but we taught to go for Baramati as it holds to very old temples Kasi vishweswarayya and siddeswara temples dated 750AD. We reached there around 1PM and to our disappointment both the temples were closed and locals told us that they will open by 5:00PM in the evening. So, as our plan is for only one day we witnessed from outside and headed back to Pune. From there it is 120kms to Pune and on the way we completed our lunch and reached Pune by 4:00PM.
