Maharashtra nature park: Gems in the middle of Asia's biggest slum

Introduction
Maharashtra or mahim nature park falls in a dharavi range which stands at a walking distance of 2.5 km from mahim railway station. Opening time of the park is 8:30 am to.3:30 pm. It is closed on public holidays.
It is a 40 acre green land rich in flora which also includes herb quality plants and fauna like butterfly, dragonfly, insects, birds, reptiles - if you are lucky enough you might spot snake also. Main purpose of this park creation was to bring ' Children close to nature' as nowadays most of them are fascinated by Big towers, Skyscraper, Automobiles(Specially which runs on fuels), Malls and club, 'A big threat to environment'.

History
Pre 1977 this 40 acres land was a garbage dumping ground, then WWF India submitted proposal to MMRDA to convert this in to forest park land, finally proposal was accepted in 1980 then the work started to remove the garbage first, before spreading the soil and planting trees, according to locals and environmentalist it was a very tiring and painful task. First tree was planted in 1992, during this period Bombay and bhiwandi went through religious riot making the vision of turning this in to park more difficult,however  time went on along with this green land started taking it's shape. Finally in 1994, ironically the very same year i was born,  'Maharashtra nature park society' took over and this place was made accessible to public.

Journey 
I tried visiting this place along with my colony friends back in 2016 Christmas, unfortunately at that time the place was closed so after 2 years on 26th November 2018 i planned to gave a visit alone, so i woke up early morning to board metro to andheri station from azad nagar, the ticket costed me 20 Rs return ticket then i boarded local train to mahim station which costed me 10 rs return ticket then i walked all the way to Maharashtra nature park, in between i purchased minute maid which costed me 22 rs, while walking on the sidewalk what i  noticed was men's with a hangover roaming around, Tata metro project, Mahim water pipe line and old abandoned car. 

Entrance to Park (2nd Gate) 

When i reached the first gate of the park, guard told me ''this one is nursey home for people who want to purchase plants, if you came here for exploration and species photography go to 2nd gate'' so i went to 2nd gate registered my name and paid 20 rs entry fee plus additional 100 Rs for camera inside main building which is parallel to gate. 

Main Building

Then i got busy in butterfly photography, during the process of photography i also learnt about the behavior of butterfly - 'some are shy while some are quite open, some fly at the low altitude level while some at high altitude level, some like to beat around and float slowly while some move too fast'.

Below are some of the snaps of butterfly photography -

• Vanessa Cardui

This butterfly is quite popular and was available in abundance out here, what i noticed was varnessa cardui, they fly at low level altitude. The one i snapped above in the pic, probably was the adult one, as i saw him spending most of the time at ground.

•    Bluetiger Butterfly

Bluetiger butterfly was spending most of the time sucking nectar of the flower, they will switch up from one flower to another within 10-15 second however they flight slowly. This species of butterfly is quite popular in India right behind orange tiger butterfly  .

• Speckled Wood  

Speckled wood are mostly found in the Wood areas, which you can see in the above image also that 'brown color' - it quite resembles on their body skin also. They tend to spend most of the time on plants and tall grass were shades are around. This species of butterfly were not in abundance out here in the park.  Unlike Common mime which is popular in india,' speckled wood are mostly found in UK.

• Graphium agamemnon or tailed jay

They were pretty active constantly moving their wings so i had a hard time capturing them. As long as i remember, i had previously seen this butterfly while descending from kaldurg mountain during monsoon season. They tend to fly at higher elevation but in search of flower they come down. It is said that they are attracted to lights at night times.

• Common Mime

This butterfly was unattractive to me so i haven't really noticed the behavior and it looked young to me. According to wikipedia it they can be seen in developed area also ,as they got evolved through times, they were capable of turning their body which is distasteful in nature to protect themselves against predators..

Nature park and surrounding

Every year the park earn around 32-35 lakh Rupee before deducting all the expenses and taxes from it.

Rain water harvesting system has been installed which can be seen on the ground while exploring park, it is said that it can store up to 2.25 crore liter of water every year in the artificial pond built, this saved them a lot of money which used to incurred when they ordered water from BMC back in the days.

Trail of the park

I kept on walking exploring different parts of the park then all of a sudden i heard a bird chirping so i ran to later find out that it was a kingfisher hidden in the woods partly visible, by the time i changed the lens of the camera he was long gone.

Wader

Dowitcher

Seabird

One can view mithi river with all mangroves around from the park, i mean the view i would say is not quite attractive or fascinating but what important is it attracts birds. 
I tried capturing the best shot of those birds but they were too far away,  so photographers with big lens can get the best out of it.

Once you get your eyes off this mithi river and mangroves, you will get the view of BKC - NSE, IDFC, PNB, Deutsche bank are some of them which is very much visible from the park. 

I took a break for couple minute to drink minute maid, then i headed towards nursery home on the way i saw papaya tree, school student along with teacher and guide getting ready to explore the park.

Papaya tree

Nursery Home

There are more snaps and also the whole park is filled with trees, along with scientific name written on it so it would be impossible for me to post everything out here. It's better y'all experience by-yourself giving a visit.
After exploring nursery home, i decided to head back to mahim station.  Route shown by google map this time was shorter through gully. I was home till 12:30 pm.