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Thattekad - Day 3 (Last Day)

Day - 3

The day started as usual at 6am, Girish took us to the same place near the hillock. Today the birds were very less compared to yesterday, may be because of previous day's movement. First we could see Oriental Honey Buzzard then followed many, yesterday i could not make good images, as they were so many species today I was clear which bird to shoot but decided to make some HD videos so started to take first few good pics then start video. This idea went well I could make pretty good videos of some species.

I will share those after editing the videos in my next blog. Today we could see the Heart spotted woodpecker but it was female yesterday was male. Then around 8 am Girish changed his plan and took us to a rubber plantation near by which was very good to see and photograph few more new species to the kitty.

              

It was a good morning session, after the sun became harsh we returned to the cottage. After lunch again 3pm we left but this time no guide with us, myself and Sanjoy went around the lake did some birding & photography. We returned back early because we had catch our bus from Aluva (50kms) from Thattekad.

The trip comes to an end with lots of new experience, new species of birds overall Thattekad is a fantastic place to visit again...... 

Sighting of the Day...

1. Oriental Honey Buzzard
2. Heart spotted woodpecker female
3. Drongo Cuckoo
4. Grey Headed Bulbul
5. Yellow browed Bulbul
6. Racket tailed Drongo
7. Oriole
8. Malabar wood Shrike
9. Golden flame-back woodpecker
10. Cuckoo shrike
11. Darter

For more pics :https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.2320078901923.85466.1848085033&type=1

Video clip of Orange Headed Thrush http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7vD-oi3fko

Thattekad - Day 2

Day -2 ...

We started at 6 am this time Girish joined us,  he took us in a car around 6kms and from there we had to walk to a place where the birds come to eat the berries. So the idea was like before the sunrise we should put our gears for photography so that the birds should not get disturbed. Everything went well we could reach in time, its about a km and a hillock. We had one more friend Mr.Nick he is wildlife book writer from UK.



The sun started raising and birds started their usual singing and calls. It was an excellent experience of so many birds calling around you. Today's first sighting was Fairy Blue Bird. What a bird to see amazing color. Then followed so many of them,  we got confused to shoot which one first because there were plenty of different species of birds to eat those berries.
      
Malabar Parakeet, Fairy Blue Bird & Unknown

Then all of a sudden we hear Girish calling us look look its Heart Spotted Woodpecker the bird was so small & so fast jumping from branch to branch i decided no to shoot that instead see & enjoy after some time it gave me an opportunity to shoot but i could only get a record shot of the beautiful bird. Thought of better luck next time. By then the sun was becoming harsh so we had to return back. Morning session was over we decided to start the afternoon session at 3-00pm.

As usual came back had very good food, relaxed for a while and started at 3pm this time it was towards Bhoothankatte Dam, the locals believe that the dam is built by demons. Girish could call a pair of Stork Billed Kingfisher but we could not shoot it. Then we went in search of Thattekad's famous resident bird The  Srilankan Frog mouth. To find this really hats off to Girish we had to trek atleast 3kms inside the forest & this pair were sitting inside a bush. After taking some photographs decided not to disturb these. We trekked for another km where there was a small water hole where all other birds were coming for bath. After a long wait i could make a HD video of Orange Headed Thrush having bath in the water, will be posting it in my next blog. It was becoming dark we left from there as we need to trek back 3kms we had good tea near the dam & returned back to cottage. Day 2 ends here.

Sightings of Day 2

1. Fairy Blue Bird
2. Crimson Throated Barbet
3. Coppersmith Barbet
4. Heart Spotted Woodpecker
5. Ruby Throated Bulbul
6. Golden Flameback woodpecker
7. Malabar grey Hornbill
8. Grey headed bulbul
9. Yellow browed bulbul
10. Pied Kingfisher
11. Stork billed Kingfisher
12. Srilankan Frog mouth
13. Rusty tailed flycatcher
14. White Bellied Tree pie
15. Orange Headed Thrush
16. Emerald Dove
17. Tickell's Blue Flycatcher
18. Oriental Honey Buzzard
19. Cuckoo Shrike  
20. Oriole
21. Malabar Parakeet

For more Pics : https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.2320078901923.85466.1848085033&type=1

Thattekad - Day 1

I had heard and visualized about Thattedad (Salim Ali Bird Sanctuary ) but never been there. One of my friend Mr.Sanjoy Adak had visited my farm near Nagarhole National Park, he had scheduled his trip to Thattekad on 20th Jan to 23rd Jan 2012. We were discussing about his last year's trip to Thattekad, i was getting more interested but in fact last year I had missed the opportunity so this time no miss. He had his train tickets, I booked by bus to Aluva and we met at Aluva on 21st Jan 2012 morning. We hired a taxi to Thattekad its about an hour journey. Sanjoy had spoken to Girish who is our bird guide and also he owns a home stay inside the sanctuary. We reached the gate of Salim Ali Bird sanctuary by 11am. We checked in to home stay got fresh and had beautiful Kerala style home made brunch as we had not had our breakfast.

Sanjoy had a wish list of 30 species of birds (Lifers) to see & photograph.......It was decided that afternoon 3pm we will start our photography session, Girish arranged one more guide with us & promised to join all the remaining sessions for next two days. I was thinking a gypsy or a car will come to pick us up.... Sanjoy tells me, no sir we need to walk. OMG I was tired hearing that because carrying a tripod with big camera & lens & that too trekking in humid condition as it is a tropical forest it was like a blow for me... :( We started off from the Periyar river side, We saw our first bird of the trip Thick billed Flower pecker.


Then the real birding started, it was a bit difficult to carry all the camera gears but had to. After trekking for a while we started seeing good number of birds out of which my eyes locked on some movement inside the canopy it was orange in color, I called the guide who was ahead of me he was like wow sir its
Malabar Trogon     

   

It was so difficult to shoot because of very low light condition, even though there was good sun light it was not enough for our camera due to thick jungle. After shooting this bird i said to Sanjoy, my day is done with this. We continued and sighted more birds which i will list it later. With this our 1st day photo session comes to an end. Back to cottage with reviewing our images and discussing we could have taken a shot like this like that all those...... but in nature birds gives only one chance to shoot, if you shoot you have the best or else wait for one more chance...........with a great dinner at Girish's home, day 1 comes to an end.

Day 1 sightings :

1. Thick Billed Flower Pecker
2. Racket tailed Drongo
3. Bronzed Drongo
4. Orange headed Thrush
5. Jungle Owlet
6. Malabar Trogon
7. Golden Flame back wood pecker
8. Pompadour Green Pigeon
9. White Breasted King fisher
10. Oriole 
11. Wiskerd Tern
12. Red vented Bulbul

 for more Pics: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.2320078901923.85466.1848085033&type=1

Elephant Autopsy

I was on a weekend trip to my land at Bommalapura, fringes of Nagarhole National Park, HD Kote. Myself & my friend Ashok's family left Bangalore early morning & reached our land, its about 3& a half hours drive from Bangalore. We planned to visit Nagarhole for a safari & meanwhile we have a machan(wooden platform) built on a live huge bamboo tree we all climbed up, from top the view will be great, especially after dark if we sit on the top without making noise you can see elephants walking down, thats an amazing experience one can feel, we rested for some time.

Then we left the farm around 2pm after our lunch, on the way while driving to NNP we came across a village called Metikuppe, before the village we noticed villagers gathered in a group, we have Mr.Mahadev swamy a friend in the same village, we met him & asked about it then came to know a female elephant died previous night in a private paddy field next to the tank bund. We also stopped & took a look & went off to NNP. Next day we had to pass on the same route & the elephant was there only, actually as per the forest rules it should be examined (autopsy) & burried or burnt. Then we pressurised the forest dept. to carry on the autopsy & burry the elephant before it rots & spreads other disease. Finally they came with a team of vet.. doc & started, the procedure is like take all the parts of the body & send to their lab to find out the cause of the death.

So they started one by one, oh god it was so terrible to see live but it was a life time chance to know about elephant autopsy, first they cut open the stomach area & removed the intestine & then was a shocking scene the dead elephant was expecting a baby & even the baby elephant had died inside. They took the baby out from the dead elephant oh god it was too disturbing & sad to see that tiny cute dead baby elephant, my friend Ashok was upset whole day seeing that baby. Anybody as a human being would have been disturbed.

They started taking out every parts of the elephant body one by one like heart, Liver etc., we saw a person going inside the elephant & getting the parts, the tuff job for the forest staff was the elephant had died in the paddy field so water logging was there. It was extremely difficult to operate on elephant, but they could manage. finally they finished the autopsy & all the parts were sent in a jeep to the lab for further investigation.


for more images please click the link : http://www.flickr.com/photos/12915728@N00/sets/72157608815058459/

It was sad & disturbed week-end for us but we learn't lot.

Coorg & Ranganathittu

On Friday Jan 30th morning myself, my wife Bhavya, my daughter Sanya & my wife's twin sister Divya left to Coorg by car, as usual we had the best Tatte idli breakfast at Bidadi. One should taste this idli who ever travels on Bangalore to Mysore Highway. We stopped at Kushalnagar for lunch & then decided to go to Dubare elephant camp. We had visited before our kid Sanya had born, we reached by 3-30pm & took up the white water rafting in river Cauveri. Wow what an experience it was after long time, refreshing to the core once again. Had fun feeding banana (a big bunch) to the tamed elephants at the camp. Then headed to the resort which is 5kms away from Madikeri, we had a warm welcome with Arathi & Thilaka in Indian traditional method.

The resort is very well designed, the cars cant reach your appartment, They took us in a (Buggie) battery operated car with our laguage to drop to our apartment. The land is very undualating so u can't every time walk down & Up. We got fresh by the time it was 6-30pm.

We took a walk around place where all other guest had gathered, at 7pm magic show for kids started & it was fun for us also. then left to dining hall & for our surprise we had 21varities of dishes & 6 varities of deserts for our dinner, fact was we got confused what to eat which one to skip, & the food was awesome taste. Next two days we enjoyed in the resort using cluod9 (gym), Swimming, etc. A great fun was giant chess which is situated outdoor.
Sunday we left to Bangalore from Madikeri & thought of visit our farm near Nagarhole on the way, then decided to visit Ranganthittu Bird Sanctuary, as i was planning to visit this place for birds photography from long time. We had lunch on the way & reached RBS by 4pm & lighting was good for photography.

We hired a boat for the safari. We found lot of birds migrated from other parts of the globe. Crocodile made quite some good photos & left to Bangalore. Overall it was a luxury & wildlife trip experience.


Photos by Srikanth & Divya

Daroji Bear sacntuary

It’s about the Daroji Bear Sanctuary, Kamalapur (Hampi), Bellary Dist. Our trip started from Bangalore myself my wife Bhavya & my daughter Sanya she is 1yr 8months old and with my friend Ashok , his wife Nidhi & their daughter Advita. We reached Hospet on 25th Dec and a friend Mr.Pampa Swami from Kamalapur who is working indirectly (volunteer) with DBS in development of the DBS from last 7yrs & has amazing knowledge on bear & birds. He picked us in his vehicle from Hospet to the DBS Nature camp which is situated just before the DBS & dropped us in the tents. Our trip plan was for three days, we got fresh had breakfast & left to DBS.
I wanted to visit Hampi not to see the ruins of the Vijayanagar kingdom but I wanted to visit this wildlife Sanctuary. One of Karnataka’s best kept secrets in Wildlife happens to be the DBS outside Hampi. Finally my dream came true.

We reached the DBS by afternoon as the bears are a bit lazy they get up only by early afternoon & start searching food. So we were on the right time we reached the gate & from there the watch tower is about 3kms, we drove to the tower and waited for an hour then we could see three bears coming on the rocks, wow what a sighting it was but not for too long. After few minutes came some more all were males suddenly two of them started fighting, ah what a roaring sound while fighting, the forest used to echo. It was a wonderful day for us seeing the sloth bear. I had seen the same in Bandipur & Nagarahole NP but for a few seconds. Also sighted lot of birds. A great destination to visit. We left for the day, back to our tents. We had beautiful dinner in the north Karnataka style with jolada rotti & brinjal masala, wow it was amazing & weather was quite chilled in the night.

Day 2, 26th Dec morning it was beautiful with lot of birds around tent & the view of sunrise right in front of our tent, as usual I took my camera & left for trek. After breakfast we relaxed for some time & visited the university at Kamalapur, saw the sculpture work of the final year students which is their project work on the rocks. We had lunch & left again to DBS for the second time, sighted lot of sloth bears playing & also a mother bear & two cubs, Painted spurfowl. After spending 3hrs we came back to our tent. Then we were discussing about the development of DBS, as-usual inadequate staff, no facilities for the staff who are in the sanctuary & no protection to the bears from the miners who blast the rocks on fringes & to the sad part most of the bears live in rock caves.

Day 3, 27th Dec we visited the Vittala temple early in the morning & waited for the sunrise, because the early golden sunrays directly falls on this premises where you find the famous Stone chariot & musical mantapam (stone pillars that generate musical rhyme) but now the Archeological dept. has banned from people touching those pillars in view of protection. One can make good photographs in that lighting. Then went to the Thunga Bhadra river played for some time & came back to tent for lunch. Our lunch was ready you know what our friend Mr.Pampa Swami had organized Olige (sweet bread) lunch with all those side dishes, wow we enjoyed & felt like a festival lunch. By 4pm we left to Lotus Mahal, Elephant Stables, Museum & Pushkarni.

Our trip came to an end our friend Pampa Swami dropped us to Hospet & we returned to Bangalore. Overall it was a fantastic trip & we are thankful to Pampa Swami for his hospitality & help rendered.

In the photo L to R Pampa Swami, My daughter Sanya, Myself & my wife Bhavya.



For photos check the link : http://www.flickr.com/photos/12915728@N00/sets/72157594550113379/

Sighted ;

1) Sloth Bear
2) Painted Spurfowl
3) Plum headed Parakeet
4) Tree pie
5) Mangoose
6) Wagtail
7) Rose ringed Parkeet
Spotted Owlet (first time on my camera)
9) White eye-bro Bulbul (first time sighting)
10) Yellow wattled Lapwing
11) Purple sunbird
12) Wild boar

regards
Srikanth