A day in KGudi Wilderness

Hello All,

A Heart Thumping Experience which happened yesterday at KGudi is worth Sharing. I prepared for a day's visit to BR Hills and left bangalore at 3.45 AM ( MidNight ) on Wednesday ( 25th APR ). With a One Pit Stop strategy, reached BR Hills at 7.30 AM. The Bird life was Amazing. Did some birding through car window all the way till JLR campus and hence missed the Morning safari. I got a sad news that Evening safari is also not possible because it'll go on till 7 and the gates close by 6. I had to return back on the same day ! I cursed myself for picking a Wrong day to visit BRHills. After Breakfast , I took a drive along main road uptil Biligiri Rangana Temple and spotted few more rare birds, A russels Viper, and a huge Cobra. After lunch, I decided to leave since the evening safari was also not possible. Just then my friend Vikranth, Asst Manager of JLR suggested me to trek inside the forest. It sounded great to me and I started off with Narayana ( naturalist, trekker ) , My cousin shashank, My cam and a Binoc.

Initial one hour of trek was really nice. Spotted some rare birds like Malabar Whisteling Thrush, Brain Fever Bird ( Hawk cuckoo ) etc. After a while something cought my eyes at a 20-25 mtr distance. Narayana told me " Guru, its a common sambar deer " . I took a clean look through the Binocs but it was staring at something on its left side. I watched it carefully but couldnt see anything towards my left as thick high grasses and bushes were blocking my way. We started to move and just then the sambar deer started Calling... loudly. We stopped , I took my binocs and watched it. The sambar kept on calling for sometime and never took its eyes off from the direction. After about 15 calls, came the REAL ONE ! THE CALL OF THE WILD ! A loud growl of a TIGER !! My heart thumped. Its growl was echoing all around the place.. narayana said " Dont move a step, We are very Close ".

It'd have been a joyful moment for me if I was in a safari jeep. But i was on ground with a cam and a binoc , Narayana with his Wireless set. We were tensed. My cousin started sweating !

Then some action. We could hear all that but I could never sight the Tiger. The drama went on for about 10 mins but the Tiger never got a clean shot ... Sambar Escaped.., The angry n hungry Growl got harder n louder. For a second I though " Is that it ? Im sure he can sense my presence here. Will I be his next target ? "

I probably would'nt have known what'd have happened if a call of a Barking deer had'nt cought his attention. Narayana gave me a signal " This is the time , lets push off " we cleared the place quickly. I was thrilled and Amazed eventhough I could'nt spot the tiger, I was close !

We waited in a safe hide next to a water hole nearby for about 30 mins, hoping to witness some movement after the Barking deer kill. But nothing more exciting happened. Tiger never came there as we expected. Everybody at JLR were thrilled to listen to the entire story me and naturalist Narayana narrated. I had my DAY ! I was DONE with what I had experienced. All that is still running in my mind. BRT is truely a WILD HEAVEN !

Should I say " I got lucky to see another Day ? " ..... I dont know ! But it was a Hellova Experience ! :-)

Sightings in KGudi

Red Wattled lapwing
Malabar Whisteling Thrush
Indian Hawk Cuckoo ( One More Bottle )
Common Hawk Cuckoo ( Brain Fever Bird )
Grey Jungle Fowl
Spotted Dove
Blue KingFisher
Forest Wagtail
Spotted Dove
White Breasted King Fisher
Indian Pond Heron ( while waiting for the Tiger to turn up near water hole ;-) )
White Cheaked Barbet
Jungle Myna
Common Myna
Green BeaEater
Rose Ringed parakeet
Pariah Kite
White throated Fantail Flycatcher
Brown FlyCatcher
Black Drongo
Tickels Blue FlyCatcher
Red Vented Bulbul
Red Whiskered Bulbul
Indian Robin
Oriental magpie Robin
Asian Koel
Spotted Owlet
Jungle Owlet
Brahminy Kite
Lesser Pied Kingfisher
Little Ringed Plover
Little Egret
Cattle Egret
Grey Wagtail
Red Jungle Fowl
Nilgiri Wood Pegion
Red Breasted Parakeet
Brown Headed Barbet
Collored Dove
Green imperial Pegion
Wood Pecker

Mammals --> Spotted Deer, Sambar Deer, Russles Viper, Indian Cobra, Hanuman Langur, Bonnet Macaque, Elephant.

Feild Guide - The Book of Indian Birds, 13th Edition by Dr.Salim Ali

Could'nt do much with my camera, but the ones I've Photographed are worth Sharing. Please do have a look
http://picasaweb.google.com/kj.avinash/KGudi

P S : Never Go to BRT , you will fall in love with it !!! :-)

Regards,

Avi

Ranganthittu trip report

Hello People,

Apologies for posting the trip report a lil late. I had taken a day off from work and wanted to go out for some Bird Watching. The previous Day ( Second sunday of April ) , I met Karthik and he suggested me that I could try Ranganthittu which is about 130 kms from Bangalore, off Srirangapattana on well developed Bangalore-Mysore Highway.

I left Early in the morning and managed to reach Ranganthittu by 7.30 Am. We were at the right place on right time. I was amazed to see so much of Bird Life around. As it was a weekday, there were hardly any visitors. Me and my cousin were the Only guests there and the forest department people were really happy to welcome us !

Without wasting much of time, we hired a boat and a very experienced forest guard Venkatesh came along with us for a good 1.30 hr boat ride ! We got to know it was OBS ( Open Billed storks ) nesting season, and we could see a lot of OBS nests and chicks.. As per the policies, I dont want to share the photographs of the chicks though they were amazing to watch !

It was my first Bird watching trip after the Naturalist training camp and we could spot about 31 species in a lil over 2 1/2 hrs and the first one to be spotted was the Tickles Blue Fly Catcher. I remember me and Donkey Deepak had a good sighting of this bird in Gol Ghar ( Bannerghatta JLR Campus )

P S --> Please dont go there on public holidays and sunday's. Fair chance of spotting birds around the sanctuary but we wont get seperate boats to carefully observe water Birds.

The Photographs of this trip can be viewed here --> http://picasaweb.google.com/kj.avinash/Recent

List of Birds Spotted in Ranganthittu

Jungle Myna

Common Crow

Tickles Blue FlyCatcher

Pond Heron

Painted Stork

OBS ( Open Billed Storks )

River Terns ( there were only two of em )

Night Heron

Stone Plover

Small Egret

Cattle Egret

Large Egret

Purple Rumped Sunbird

Brahminy Kite

Little Cormorant

Fruit bat ( Not a Bird though :-) )

White Breasted KingFisher

Oriental magpie Robin

Forest Wagtail

Darter

Eurasian SpoonBill

Red Whiskered Bulbul

Asian Koel Small

Blue KingFisher

Grey Wagtail

Indian Peafowl

Common Kite

Purple SunBird

Field Guides

100 birds of Bannerghatta

Birds of Ranganthittu ( can be purchased there for 10/- )

Book of Indian Birds 13th Edition by Dr.Salim Ali ( Learning to use this )

Happy Birding ,

Avi

Bird Watchin at Manchinbele Dam – 08Apr-07

Folks, bfore I start on what we saw, let me tell u some thing … Manchinbele dam is located around 25Kms from Bangalore. Very peaceful place but don’t expect the place to have a 4inch cement road J…The place can be reached by taking the Mysore road and then taking a right turn at RajaRajeshwari Dental college. Then the straight road will lead to the BIG BANYAN TREE... and then u can ask the localities to locate the dam..

We were 4 ppl this time Me, Niri, Gane and Sunil (Previous Naturalist Batch) .We started early around 6.00A.M but we reached the place around 8.00A.M. Before we reached the dam we could spot so many birds.. and then here goes the list that we saw:

1. Spotted Dove.
2. Indian Roller
3. Cattle Egret
4. Pond Heron
5. Magpie Robin
6. Jungle Myna
7. Black Drongo
8. Indian Robin
9. Red Rumped Swallow
10. Purple Sunbird
11. Bay backed Shrike
12. Black Cormorant
13. Long Tailed Shrike
14. Black Ibis
15. Brahmini Kite
16. Little Egret
17. White Browed Wagtail
18. Little Plower
19. Red Wattled Lapwing
20. Little Grebe
21. Green Bea eater
22. White breasted Kingfisher
23. River Tern
24. Grey Heron
25. Purple Heron
26. Pale billed Flower pecker
27. Common Wren warbler
28. Black shouldered Kite
29. Jungle Babbler
30. Black Eagle.

We could spot all of these birds in 2.5 Hrs of time and it was a good experience to see River Tern catching a fish. We jst enjoyed the place. If you are going to this place please please don’t enter the water coz there have been lot of mishaps and people loosing their lives. Ironically one person drowned when we were there.

@ Hebbal - April 1, 07

Decided to go birdwatching, venue - Hebbal Lake.
Rendezvous 7.00 AM @ Hebbal
Participants - Me, Deepak and Prashanth.

First birdwatching trip, armed only with the booklet 100 birds of Bannerghata NP, 2 Binocs and tonnes of zeal went out to Hebbal. Spotted quite a number of birds, recognized some and could not recognize some. Did not take my camera since I wanted 2 concentrate on birdwatching and not on photography. Here we met a group of birdwatchers who were very helpful and helped us in identifying many birds. Two names I remeber are Manjunath and Nitin both were very good and had nearly 10 years in this field. They are also into conservation of the Bangalore North lakes. They helped us in identifying Rosy Pastor, a bird flying down all the way from Afghanistan, Purple Swamp Hen and White headed warbler. They were pleasently surprised @ seeing us noting down things in our books and told us this was a rare sighting ;-). Manjunath also told me Karthik is a very good friend of his.

Karthik rightly said it's pleasure doing this activity coz after nearly spending 2.5 hrs we did not feel the strain and were feeling refreshed.

Summary - Great activity+Meeting new people+ 21 birds identified.

List
1) Purple Swamp Hen
2) Tailor Bird
3) Purple Sunbird (male & female)
4) Common Myna
5) Rose ringed Parakeet
6) Red Whiskered Bulbul
7) Pariah kite
8) Red Vented Bulbul
9) House Crow
10) Pond heron
11) Purple heron
12) Little Cormorant
13) Spotted Dove
14) Cattle egret
15) Rosy pastor
16) Tickle's blue flycatcher
17) Ashley wren warbler
18) White headed babbler
19) Booted Warbler
20) Pale billed flower pecker
21) Purple rumped Sunbird

Actions - Need to buy the birding book.