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Authors, Poets & Woodcrawling - Part 2: Agumbe & the elusive Hamadrayd

October 22, 2012, 7:15 am
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Link to previous post is here

6th October, 2012

As I had mentioned in my last post I was in Udupi to be a part of the Alumini Meet hosted by my college. The meet was scheduled to for 6.30 PM on Saturday but since we had taken a night train from Palakkad we were deposited in Mangalore station at 4.30 AM. Fortunately, the taxi agency had sent the car to pick us up and we were in Udupi by 6.30 AM.

We had 12 hours at our disposal so I had planned to utilize the day to make a trip to Agumbe. The road passes through Someshwara WLS and the drive itself is beautiful.

Agumbe, for those unfamiliar with the name, is nothing more than a little junction with a few houses and government buildings clustered around. It's claim to fame is that it is the 'rainiest' place in all of South India and second only toCherrapunji. It was identified as the perfect habitat for the Hamadryad or the King Cobra by Romulus Whittaker and the main purpose of my visit was to drop in at theAgumbe Rainforest Research Station (ARRS), established by him in 2005 for research on the King Cobra and the ecology of the rainforest in which it lived.

I lived in Manipal between January of 1985 and June of 1996 and had traveled up the Agumbe Ghats or more than one occasion, mainly as a part of the team conducting cataract screening camps in rural Karnataka. Agumbe was just a village on the route because there was nothing much there to stop over for. The only place, in those days. to get decent food was in Thirthahalli, 30 kilometers away.As a student and later as faculty the beauty of nature in and around Udupi and Shimoga bypassed me. Perhaps, the beaches and parties were to blame!

As I researched Agumbe I realized that 12 hours was too short to explore this pristine area but since I had made up my mind I decided I'd use this opportunity to recce the area before planning a longer trip. One of my friends put me through to someone in Karkala who informed me that the smallest trek around Agumbe would need half a day. It was disappointing. My search for the Hamadryad would have to wait. Besides, it seemed that the rain God's aren't partial to anyone. The failure of the monsoon had its effect in Agumbe too. The reputation as the second most 'rainiest' place in India sounded hollow as we reached Sunset Point at the top of the ghat road.









 The bonnet macaques were also busy grooming themselves in the warm sun occasionally reaching out for the tidbits thrown by passing tourist.



One of them seemed pretty upset with a hoarding that was blocking it's route up the hill and it was going about systematically tearing it up. I guess the simian's action was justified since the eyesore was put on the road side where there is hardly any space for parking.



 


There was not a rain cloud in sight and the place was crowded with day trippers. It was supposed to be a bandh in Karnataka to protest against the Supreme Court's decision on release of Cauvery waters to Tamilnadu but the people in this part of the world were seemingly unaffected.

The view was great but it was not time for sunset so we drove on towards Agumbe.












No rains meant more crowds & less chances for an encounter with leeches and king cobras. We decided to push on to Kuppalli and do the ARRS on our return leg. (So the rest of this narrative is actually the part of our drive on the way back from Kuppalli.)






The Agumbe Rainforest Research Station (ARRS), is not on the road side and there is no board or sign post to show you the way. Once you reach Agumbe, from Udupi, the road that goes straight ahead from the junction is to Sringeri.







The road to Thirthahalli and Shimoga turns left and goes past the bus station on your right.














 A 100 meters down the road is a group of houses with a board of the local chicken center hanging on the fence. Turn left onto the mud track between the houses and follow your instinct! If you happen to cross a church or a bridge after Agumbe on the main road, you have most likely shot past the track to ARRS (like us!). Make a U-turn and keep your eyes peeled for that little board  with the picture of a chicken!

The ARRS lies at the very end of the track. The forest department has started fencing off the jungle now so I guess you'll have a fence to guide you in the not too distant future. The issue is that as the track proceeds it becomes narrower, barely sufficient for a car to pass. Even if a motorcycle comes opposite to you you'll probably have to back up. A better option would be to park your vehicle just before the narrow stretch and walk down the last 100 meters or so.


The ARRS is an old farmhouse, renovated to be used as a research center. The researchers usually stay onsite with a few permanent staff. We were hoping to meet Gowri Shankarbut we were a little too late. He was away, apparently doing a PhD somewhere. I was told that the King Cobra project was for a period of 5 years and the Karnataka forest department (KFD) had not renewed the permit for the team to enter & research in the surrounding jungles. The current researcher was doing something on the snake headed fish but he was still waiting for his forest entry permit! KFD also has been grappling with a naxalite problem which is probably why they are wary of giving new permits now.






The elusive Hamadryad would continue to remain elusive till our next visit. I walked down the track for a little distance hoping to see some movement in the undergrowth but the only thing that caught my eye were a pair of amorous bugs!















As we drove back towards the village my wife spotted three hornbills on a tree. I wasn't prepared for birds. I had come with a head filled with images of reptiles, amphibians and bugs so the camera I had packed was not meant for birding. Even if I could switch lenses the reach of a 150mm would have been inadequate from our position. Besides, birds aren't going to be waiting for you to do that. I just jumped out of the car and scampered back to the tree. Unfortunately, it wasn't going to be my day. The birds were off looking for better prospects on some other tree. From one grainy shot (due to the inbuilt 2x Digital Teleconvertor) it looked like juveniles of the Malabar or Lesser Pied Hornbill.




Back at the village we dropped by atDoddamane, made famous by R.K Narayan's  creation Swami.The TV serial "Malgudi Days" was shot in the 150 year old house and it is the only option for home stay in Agumbe. I have posted a separate blog for Doddamane because I think the BIG HOUSE deserves it.The inspection bugalow is apparently the other alternative but I didn't even bother to ask. I have a phobia about getting booted out of Goverment property at odd hours because some "babu" turned up!! Another option is the ARRS provided there are no volunteers of ongoing research staying.

We didn't stop at Sunset Point it was more crowded than the morning and cloudy too. Besides, we had a party to attend in Manipal......

(Please note: All the words highlighted in YELLOW above, open links related to that word)

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Authors, Poets & Woodcrawling - Part 3: Kasturi Akka & Doddamane

October 22, 2012, 8:14 am
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Link to previous post is here 

DODDAMANE
We dropped by on Kasturi Akka, the matriarch of Doddmane. She has soaked in all the adulation that comes out of being a gracious host to a variety of back packing individuals. I say 'back packing' because Doddamane is for the back packer. If you are looking for the comforts of a three star hotel (forget five star) you will be better off looking for accommodation in Udupi (55 kms) or Sringeri (25 kms) depending on which direction you come from.



It is also the centerpiece of the TV Serial"Malgudi Days", directed by Late Shankar Nag, based on a collection of short stories by R.K Narayan, in the same name.

It s evident that Doddmane has seen better times. In it's heydays there were some 45 people living together under it's roof. Even in it's current state it was impressively big. The front door opens into a central courtyard open on top.
























The kitchen and dining area was opposite the front door and the rear portion had the well and bathrooms.



















There are cots all along the corridors with clothes hangers above them. I guess, if you were not very particular about having a room to yourself it is a good option. The natural ventilation of the courtyard will make sleeping a wonderful experience.









In any case, I think it is THE better option because the bedrooms on the ground floor (where the doors were open) seemed a little cramped. Unless you need place to store lots of gear the corridors should do fine.

Kasturi Akka is a gentle but firm lady. She is strict about timings (5AM to 10PM) and your habits (no smoking or drinking on premises). Meal timings are slightly flexible but supper order closes by 8PM. No fancy menu but simple local fare.

As a matter of fact we had a demo of how 'strict' she can be as we were talking to her. One of her guests who was on his way for a trek came to inform about his dinner order. He wanted chapatis with vegetable curry and 'white rice'. Kasturi Akka very firmly told him, chapatis would not be a problem but 'white rice' would, because "None of us like 'white rice', we prefer 'red rice' because it is more tasty". The conversation ended there. There is no arguing with the head of the house especially when it is told with a smile that says, "take it or leave it" !

You can stay in Doddamane or just eat there. You'll have to inform or request in advance. That she'll even pack food if you are going on a trek is what I read in one blog but another says "No take aways"! To contact her just call 08181233075

We were served a glass of butter milk and given an orange (home grown) each. The butter milk was heavenly, so was the sight of the food two other visitors were eating! I have no doubt in my mind that whatever she served would be fine if you liked home cooked vegetarian food.

Kasturi Akka's daughter was at home since it was a Sunday. Usually her job takes her to Manipal, a journey of 3 hours daily (two-ways), so she is around to help only on weekends & holidays. On the other days Kasturi Akka manages with the help of another lady.

I'm in my elements when I take pictures in the wild or outdoors and when my subject is not human but I am more than a little squeamish about taking pictures in someone else's house especially a complete strangers so I took very little pictures inside the house.If you want to see more click this link to another blog on Doddamane. 

We weren't sure if we should pay for the butter milk and oranges and when we offered to, she refused saying, "If you came to your Ajji's house would you pay?" To her we were house guests on that day, not a paying guest. She promised she'd take money when we came as a tourist. If you plan a visit to Doddmane, remember that there are no fixed charges. Kasturi Akka will take anything you give without even counting, in complete good faith. What you pay is based on your judgement of your experience at Doddamane. I'm sure if your tastes are simple you'll not be disappointed!

We bid goodbye to Kasturi Akka promising to return. ARRS and Agumbe deserved more than a couple of days and Doddamane is the best base station in Agumbe.

The next post on Kuppalli will come up shortly. The delay is due the translation of Kuvempu's poem, "Mane Mane Muddumane"


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DUSTERMANIA

November 4, 2012, 8:17 am
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Padmanabhapuram palace - A Masterpiece in Wood

December 2, 2012, 3:51 am
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Time and again, over the last few months, I've preached about measuring distances in time. Sometimes, it is better to take the advice of someone in the know of things than make foolish decisions about places you don't know.

I was in Trivandrum for a conference and I had to keep a 10 year old engaged. I had promised him a trip to Kanyakumari (Cape Comorin) so the second day of conference was set aside for it. 87 kilometers from Trivandrum to me was a 2 hour drive logically and since I wasn't going to be at the wheel I thought it would be faster!


I wanted to go to Kanyakumari do the usual trip to the Vivekananda rock and also see if I could do Padmanabhapuram palace, Suchindram and a couple of other temples and a waterfall. The total distance would not be more than 250 kilometers and I was sure a leisurely start after an early breakfast would see us back in Trivandrum for the Banquet in the evening to be hosted by the organizers of the conference.

The taxi driver called up to tell that if we were to do the entire program, we'd have to start at 6.00 AM and would only be back by 10.00 PM! I did not go to Trivandrum to get hauled out of bed at 4.30 AM. Hey! I find even 5.30 AM unearthly! I told him we'd leave after breakfast and do what ever we could in 12 hours.

I have maintained that NH-47 is a nightmare and my feeling were reinforced on that day. The taxi driver had told us it would be an endless traffic jam all the way to Kanyakumari and he wasn't wrong. There was a KSRTC bus with a punctured front tyre on the railway overbrigde near the Trivandrum station. Five minutes into the trip and we were caught in a seemingly impossible situation. It took some 20 minutes to get past the jam and I was getting a bit annoyed. My driver said that there was a route through Kovalam and Poovar that could help us avoid the traffic at least part of the way so we took the road he suggested. I consented grudgingly because I was responsible for the immediate situation.

That route was only slightly better; winding and narrow, overtaking was nearly impossible so we were part of a long line of vehicles that crawled like a toy snake. Every now and then a vehicle would pop out of the line like  the toy snake's section, only to quickly return to it's rightful place, as an oncoming vehicle would ensure it could not jump the queue!


Three hours into the journey, at 11.45 AM we had reached Thuckalay, some 50 odd kilometers from Kanyakumari. The Padmanabhapuram Palace, the home to the rulers of the erstwhile Travancore was located here. After the reorganization of the states in 1956, Padmanabhapuram became part of the Kanyakumari district of Tamilnadu. Perhaps, politicians those days were more magnanimous; the administration of the palace was retained by the Government of Kerala. However, the income and expenditure are shared equally by the two states. Amazing cooperation!

Since walking through the Palace does not qualify as Woodcrawling I am posting a blog on the Padmanabhapuram palace in Mango Musings as a series.

You can read it here.

What will come here next is a contemporary post with a link to the past. Everyone is talking about 'The Life of Pi', Ang Lee's latest movie in 3D. Few know that the author of the book it is based on, Yann Martel actually did research for his book in the Trivandrum Zoo. I'll tell you about it shortly.....
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Trivandrum Zoo and the Genesis of Richard Parker

December 2, 2012, 8:02 pm
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A little over a week ago, Ang Lee's 3D fantasy movie 'Life of Pi' released in theaters. I was in Trivandrum that morning and had half a mind to book myself for a late night show. After spending a little thought on it I realized it wouldn't really fit into my plans.

I was there for a conference and booked into the Mascot Hotel where the food quality of food ( for a hotel of it's repute) was abysmal. Trivandrum's hotels, including KFC, were famous for all the wrong reasons. People were falling ill and even dying after eating in hotels there so  I wasn't sure it was always like that or only because a bunch of ophthalmologists were going to be swarming the premises for a three day conference. Whatever the reason, the breakfast and lunch we got that day had us searching for more palatable stuff outside it's walls!

We had an evening to kill and the 'Life of Pi' was ruled out because we felt it had nothing in it for a 10 year old and his priority seemed to be the dinner rather than a movie. I would have to wait for the movie to hit theaters in my town, whenever that would be. Meanwhile, I thought it would be appropriate to show my son the Zoo that told a story.

Yann Martel says that "most books come from the same mix of three elements: influence, inspiration and hard work".

You can read the essay he wrote on 'How I wrote the Life of Pi' here. 

While he was researching for his book he spent time in South India scouring the various zoos for six months in 1996. Richard Parker actually changed avatar from a elephant to a rhino and finally to the tiger. So, to understand a tiger's life he spent 15 days at the Trivandrum Zoo observing them! I'm just wondering, if 15 days at a zoo watching caged tiger can inspire a book, I should have material for many!  Perhaps, I should signup for a refresher course in English to polish up my writing skills!

Anyway, I wanted to see what was the inspiring thing about tigers he saw in the Trivandrum Zoo so I thought I'd go. Besides, it would keep my son busy till dinner!

There is a rather unflattering report of the Zoo and it's visitors from the Guardian by Luke Harding after Yann Martel was awarded the Booker Prize. Of course it would be too much to expect anything else from the Guardian. After all anything that is not British is not proper!

Read the Guardian article here

A Bit of History:
The Trivandrum Zoo, considered the oldest in the country, took shape during the time of Swathi Thirunal (1813 - 1847)  a King and composer. He had a collection of animals in the royal stables that were caught and caged from the forests in and around Travancore. The Zoo itself, in it's present form, was created in 1859 under the rule of Uthram Thirunal Maharaja. The carnivore house was apparently designed on the model of cages in the Zoological Gardens in London. The zoo today is more animal friendly and most of the animals roam in open enclosures.

Entry into the Zoo is by tickets and no plastic is allowed inside. You can deposit your bags and plastics at the entrance. There are kiosks and water coolers inside in case you want a bite or quench your thirst.

The last time I went there was many years ago and I could see things had changed. Unfortunately, we were constrained by time on this visit because it was a rather impromptu trip to the zoo.

The lion tailed macaques are the first creatures you encounter and they look bored. I was wondering how these simians never felt like climbing over the wall of their enclosure. There was no netting to prevent their exit and the trees in their enclosure had branches that reached out to the trees outside! Even a bunch of bananas failed to enthuse some of them.






Across the macaque's enclosure is a traditional Kerala building that could pass off as a house. House it is, but belongs to the King Cobras.


You cross a few monkey cages to reach this ancient building that house a few raptors and owls. Photography in most of these cages is very difficult. They have bars and meshes in multiple layers,  not only to prevent the creatures from escaping but also to stop annoying tourists from disturbing them.



The rhino was not in a mood and neither was the lion. Both of them were in another world perhaps like Africa!




The black bear wouldn't even lift up its nose from the ground it was digging into. The hippos were the happiest lot; wallowing in the pool, occasionally lifting up their heads and snorting in bliss.



The big cats are all above and beside the hippo enlosure. You can hear them growl long before you see them. All of them look well looked after, though most of them have that vacant look of a prisoner who has been watching the world go by monotonously.



This guy was pacing his cage and growling. A magnificent specimen that could be Richard Parker.


This one was growling without lifting it's head. Maybe annoyed by the ruckus the two males on either side of her were creating!
 The other big guy too was pacing his cage looking across at the other male. Perhaps the lady was the cause of their impatience!


The lone jaguar was nowhere to be seen. It is a creature of the night and was likely sleeping off the daylight as were the lioness'.


The most majestic of them all, who could have been Richard Parker, had a larger enclosure. His attitude seemed to suggest that us lesser mortals were not worth even a passing glance. A mongoose had got into his space and was taking quick bites off his meat (see to the left of the tiger), but he chose not to react except for turning his ears backward occasionally.

The tigers of Trivandrum Zoo were all in excellent condition. It speaks of the care that the keepers give them. Perhaps they would have a personality disorder, being confined to the barred enclosures.  They should be more adventurous, like Marty the lion from Madgascar (the movie)!

It still leaves me wondering what Yann Martel could have learnt about the behaviour of tigers from a zoo in 15 days. He'd have learnt more if he could have spent time with a person like Ullas Karanth in the field or reading Kenneth Anderson or Jim Corbett!!

I'm still waiting for the movie to release in a theater near me. Maybe I'll change my opinion about Martel after that!
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Unbiased review of the Duster - Part 3: Unfinished business in Anamudi Shola

December 13, 2012, 3:11 am
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This post should have come under Mango Musings but I've placed it here because it qualifies as Woodcrawling! To see the earlier post of the 'Unbiased review of the Duster' see the post in Mango Musings

A little more than three and a half months ago we had discovered a lovely little place during our trip to Munnar.  (Link here).

For two people who had been used to sitting in a safari jeep and going around the same tracks in the hope of catching the eye of a predator it was a new experience.Here was a scenario where we were in the wilderness we loved so much, but instead of getting driven we were driving ourselves. That meant we were in control of where we stopped, how long we stopped and what we could do. That evening we spent in Maryoor had left an indelible impression on both of us. We had be limited by our transport and the opinions of a few people who probably had some ulterior motives to prevent us from going ahead. Despite encouragement from some unexpected quarters we weren't sure of testing the terrain in a hatchback with less than ideal ground clearance.

1st, November 2012, I took delivery of our Duster. It was a vehicle that had appeared in the horizon earlier in the year and we had booked in July. It had been a long wait but we had to ourselves a gentle beast to carry us to place we had never been to before. I had tested it out in and around Palakkad(link here) but there was nothing here like the Anamudi shola.

So on the 18th, November we were off to see how the Duster would handle the shola. There was a full complement of five passengers and a boot full of photography gear and food. We left at 6.30 AM because we had to be back by nightfall. I hate driving after sunset these days, and since our route was to take us through an area I had not traveled in I could not really predict how long I had to be at the wheel.

The sun was still hiding when we crossed Pollachi (45 kms) onto Udumalapet (75 kms). The wind turbines stood like sentinels in the maize fields and the road was tempting. I'm a sedate driver normally but I succumbed to temptation and let the Renault K9 engine have some fun. The needle was nudging 130 kph when I ran out of road for speed test, besides I thought the people in the back seat were making noises, so I eased off. The memories of chasing a Santro on NH 47 weren't too pleasant. The Duster was rock steady at that speed. Absolutely no feeling of the wheels going out of control anytime or the engine straining.


We stopped for breakfast at the Chinnar checkpost(105 kms). The EDC canteen does not have breakfast unless you pre-order but they let you take your packed food and use their dining area. Of course, you won't believe if I told you they couldn't even provide a cup of tea! Please keep a fiver ready if you want to use the toilets; they rarely have change! (Fuel efficiency shown by the instrument panel FE calculator was 17.5 till this point)





































If you want tea, stop at Karimutty (118kms). The little tea shop at the bridge serves nice tea.



The road to Anamudi shola splits off to the left at Marayoor (120kms), just after the petrol station as you up come up the last curve. The rocky slopes on either side of the road from Marayoor to Kanthaloor are dotted with 'muniyaras' or dolmens, the ancient tribal burial sites. These simple tombs are empty now and are worth a brief stopover if you have time to spare.



You can go up to the 'muniyaras' through the Goverment school that is situated on the upper curve of an S-bend as you reach Kovilkadavu. The other option, which is actually better, is to look for a board on your left about a kilometer after the turn off near the petrol station, (much before the school I mentioned). This small road takes you to the top of the hillock where the 'muniyaras' are. You can park at the bottom and walk up or drive up if you have a car with an attitude!


We didn't hang around too long exploring the tombs. We had a long drive before lunch and I wanted to soak in the atmosphere of the shola. The sugarcane fields of Kanthaloor were filled with cane ready to be harvested. We reached Kanthaloor (135 kms) just before 11 AM. If an old man waves you down at the forest check post you can ignore him.He only wants to take you on a guided tour of Kanthaloor's fruit farms! The board pointing to Anamudi Shola suddenly seemed very familiar even though I had been on this road only once earlier. Perhaps a gaur would be waiting for us!

Easwari's stall  (138 kms) signalled the entry to the Shola. This time she had a larger variety of fruits including custard apple, guavas and bananas but no pears! She told us there had been no rains so the road was not so tough to travel on. It was then we realized there wasn't a cloud in the sky and it was extremely warm for a place in the hills. 

Upto now we had either traveled on highways or relatively narrow and winding ghat roads. The instrument panel's fuel efficiency calculator was now showing 15.6 kmpl. The next 7 or 8 kilometers were going to be a test for the Duster. 


There was no rain so it would be relatively easy. Absence of flowing water on the track would mean less chance of deeply eroded parts filled with slush or mud that could hide invisible dangers. I would know where my tire was going exactly. The last thing anyone would want is a tire burst! I had reached a bridge with a little cascade on my previous trip and that was my first destination.

A half hour break here enjoying the beautiful sounds and sights of nature we decide to move on. As we rolled over the loose cobbles on the track I could feel the Dusters power. No sudden jumps or slips. It just moved forward like the Nilgiri Tahr. I just had to point it in the direction I wanted it to go and it went forward where it was meant to go. I was mostly in second or first gears, and rarely in the third. The track gets more rough as we climb further.



The bright sun that had been with us till Easwari's shop was struggling to pentrate the canopy. The rough track was getting more narrower we progressed that I was left wondering where I'd go if a vehicle came from the opposite direction.














My fears were unfounded. The Duster was exhibiting its versatility and it seemed completely at ease in this environment. After about 8 kilometers of negotiating this rough track we reached the other end of the shola. It had taken us a hour (excluding the half hour spent at the little bridge) to cover this distance. There were no complaints of aches and pains after the constant bouncing. The car itself had not exhibited any strain. The fuel efficiency had come down to 13 kmpl after this stretch, which was not bad considering the fact that I had been driving in 1st or 2nd gear all through, with many stoppages.


There was no gaur or elephant waiting for us on the track but signs of their presence were all around.  We weren't disappointed though; the langur sentry fixed us with a glare that was filled with contempt. He knew the four adults and child below him were incapable of climbing his tree. He continued foraging without a second thought. 


The Malabar Giant Squirrel, whom we met near the watch tower on top of the shola, was even more  nonchalant in his expression. It seemed that we were invisible to him as gave a show for nearly 10 minutes at touching distance.


Outside the shola the landscape changes instantly. Within a few feet of the  forest check post the the vegetable farms and tea estates start. Though there is a fencing between them there was a distinct possibility of curious animals straying out of their territory.

Clear cloudless skies above us and winding roads under, our next stop was Kundala dam which we could see in the distance

  

There is a whole lot of Idukki district that will keep a Woodcrawler interested. I was constrained by the limitations imposed by my car. Now I have a vehicle that can take me anywhere without batting an eyelid (if it had one!) and without burning a deep hole in my pocket.

 Watch this space....... Mathikettan Shola and Pampadum Shola are on the radar now!


For the Duster Fans only
Total distance: 338  kms
Fuel consumed:(full tank to full tank): 22 liters (filled after 352 kms)
Fuel efficiency: Highway - 18 +/-, Hills - 15 +/-, Off road - 12 +/- (based on figures shown on the FE calculator in the instrument panel). Overall - 16 kmpl (based on topping up after 352 kms)
Ride quality: Excellent. There were two people with bad backs in the car. Despite the grueling drive in the Anamdi Shola, neither of us felt even a twinge of pain. On the highway there is no body roll even at high speeds and at no point do you get the feeling that you are losing control.
Engine noise: Barely audible even when negotiating tough roads in low gears, almost silent on highway
Gears: Easy shifting, no strain between 2000 to 3000 rpm, shift down if you run below 1500 rpm. I have found the clutch as easy as in my Punto. Drivers shifting from petrol engines might take a little time to get used to the heavier clutch and frequent need for down shifting.
Steering: Easy and ultra steady. It was only when the wheels slipped of loose rocks that I felt a wobble, which I think is natural. Again, people shiftin from a smaller or lighter car might find it a bit stiff.
Tires: Excellent on the highway. Minor slipping on loose gravel in the Shola. The OE MRF Wanderers seemed to be better suited to paved roads than off-roading. Have to test it out on rough terrain in the rains.
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My Clay Elephant

May 20, 2012, 4:15 am
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As I mentioned in my last post this is another post that is NOT about Woodcrawling. The fact is I haven't been able to find time to woodcrawl recently and I've been forced to look at other options.

So what's the next best thing to jungle? An elephant sanctuary.

In Guruvayur, the famous temple town in Kerala you can see more tuskers in one place that you would see on the banks of the Kabini reservoir even in peak summer. Some 50 odd tuskers that belong to the temple are kept in Punathoor kota.

It's might look odd to a true nature lover but despite the not so wonderful conditions the elephants of Guruvayur are the best cared for among the ones that belong to private owners.


Their tale is told here.
































One of them was a fascinating fellow. Both the times I encountered him he was not the natural colour of the elephant. He had sort of painted himself with all the mud lying around. I therefore called him The Clay Elephant.


You will find a description of my encounter here.

 

 Please click the links above to go the the respective Blog pages.


Meanwhile, I've got one more opportunity coming up this month end to go Woodcrawling. I'll be back with some more tales soon, but till then go meet my friend, The Clay Elephant.

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Woodcrawler Jr & the Bronzeback of Valiyaeri

January 8, 2013, 10:18 am
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The euphoria of the Duster has died down and family trips during Christmas vacation have come and gone. School has reopened now and the Little Woodcrawler is busy.

It had been a busy December that I did not find time to update the Journal with all the running around. Palakkad is known for Malampuzha, Parambikulam, Nellyampathy and Silent Valley but if you look hard enough you can find interesting little places closer to home. Places that are not frequented by pesky tourists and hidden from prying eyes.

Off the NH-47 in Kanjikode, nestled at the foothills of the Western Ghats is Valiyaeri. You won't find it on Google! I heard about from an old driver of mine. He related tales of elephants dropping in on the farmsteads on the fringes of the forests near there and my curiosity was piqued. I had gone there many years ago but had to park my car and walk a considerable distance to reach the southern side. The only thing I encountered that day was a cobra that went into the paddy field I was crossing, like a Bullet train!

Now many years later, my son had graduated to being Woodcrawler Jr, I had to show him this little secret. Elephants were still raiding crops but lately the electrified fences along the forest's edge had  effectively ensured that their visits were infrequent. In any case, a Sunday was time for exploring so we decided to go.

This time I took another road, going further from the point where I had accessed the Southern edge. It would eventually reach the railway track but that was not my aim. About half a kilometer before the railway lines a mud track veers left into the edge of the forest. I had no fear of getting stuck on this trip because we had a bigger vehicle but I wanted to be sure I'd be able to back out. An old man told us that we could go all the way to the lake's edge and we did.

There were the regular cormorants roosting and a Brahmini kite swooping overhead.

It was mid-morning and we didn't expect much. As we walked around the Eastern bund a bored Pied kingfisher and a pair of red wattled lapwings surveyed our progress.

It was too warm to be swooping around and we didn't seem to be a threat to them so they stayed put. My son's attention was on the little cars he'd carried along while I was busy surveying underfoot.


I wasn't sure if it was a good day for a trip to Valiyaeri till I saw a slight movement, against the wind, in a crevice on the rock. It was a slender snake with beady eyes and it was trying to sway like the grass behind, but not quite getting the hang of it. The grass would wave one way and the snake would sway in the opposite direction. I was worried about the kite overhead. The snake would make a nice meal!


I hissed to my son to attract his attention. Bronzebacks are fast and it wouldn't need more than a fraction of a second for it to disappear from sight. I needn't have been so worried because the snake was as curious I was. It retracted into the rock with it's chin resting on the edge.


It seemed to me that the snake had decided that it's first priority was to warm up. It had probably been lying up the night between the cracks in the rock and as the day warmed up, must have decided to come out to sunbathe. Unfortunately  it's plans were being interrupted. My son had picked up another camera and was on the topside of the rock.

The next 45 minutes was a hide-n-seek game between my son, the snake and me. It would pop it's head up and my son would crane his neck to see if he could get a good shot.

The snake had withdrawn into the crevice and was trying to find another way out.


















My son was sitting patiently for the snake to make it's move. The bronzeback was not intimidating enough for him. He had handled one in Bandipur a couple of years ago and knew it was harmless. He was more keen on getting a hold on it than get a picture! Disappointment was writ large on his face as the snake kept refusing to climb out.


























The snake won round one but we weren't about to give up. We withdrew behind the rock. The snake had to make it's move eventually. Move, it did, but from another side.


There were shards of glass lying around from someone's party and the snake was using the pieces as cover!

It would raise itself up slowly to survey the surroundings.


Though we crept behind the snake but it was not about to be fooled. It would look around to see what we were up to behind it.



He was a clever little fellow. Every time we circled around, it would twist and crane its neck to see where we were and what we were upto.

























Eventually, probably realizing that we were as tenacious as it was, the snake disappeared one final time before emerging from another side and swiftly vanishing into the dry grass beyond.























It was an exciting 45 minutes with a beautiful reptile. We would have to make trip to Valiyaeri again and Woodcrawler Jr is ready for it. Watch this space......
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Fire & Water

March 2, 2013, 10:25 pm
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Summer is here and I've just been woken up from hibernating. Not too much woodcrawling except a small trip to Bandipur (more about that later).

The dry cold winds sucked the moisture from everything, living or dead. The reservoir, where only a couple of months ago, I had test driven a new car to see its off roading capability, was already dried up significantly.



News of wild fires were trickling in from everywhere and that is worrying to everyone. The forest department is worried about the devastation and effect on wildlife, conservationist worry about everything and owners of farms and estates (encroached or legitimate holdings) on the fringes are worried about the monetary loss.


It was a very different Malampuzha. The water levels had receded so much that we had to drive out to a considerable distance to reach the edges of the remaining water. Even there it was shallow enough to wade through. The shoes kept sinking into the mud so we didn't fancy testing the capability of the car, especially with no other human being in sight. It would be a long walk if I had to get a tow truck to dig us out of trouble!




There was still a tinge of green along the water's edge, the result of a minor thunderstorm that lashed Palakkad a week before, but there were also places which looked like it was part of some desert.


The little water that was still remaining meant that fish would be surfacing for air regularly. There weren't many birds around but the ones that were there were having a field day.





The Northern Pintail ducks were too busy exploring underwater to take notice of me. Most of the time I was around they were with their head underwater!


LITTLE RINGED PLOVER




















The few waders present were not in groups. I spied individuals of  a few of species. 

SANDPIPER



GREAT EGRET

GREY HERON

There were also a small group of black headed ibises and Asian openbills
BLACK HEADED IBIS


ASIAN OPENBILL STORKS


Cormorants were the only birds on large numbers and they were dive bombing in the shallows and finding great success.

LITTLE CORMORANTS

Other than the kites gliding overhead the only other birds were a lone wagtail and many pipits.
WHITE BROWN WAGTAIL
PADDY FIELD PIPIT 


It seemed that the birds were having a good time as the water disappeared. The unfortunate part was that the forest on the edges of the reservoir were passing through their worst crisis. The leaves that had been shed during the winter months with the dried grass form a deadly combination. A carelessly thrown cigarette or even a spark from a fire lit to clear the under bush can lead to disaster. 

It almost happened on the other shore a few weeks previously. The farm owner was allegedly clearing his property but things quickly went out of control.







It took a mere half  hour for the fire to spread but mercifully it died out before doing too much damage. The forest official whom we ran to inform could only watch helplessly. The nearest fire station was in Kanjikode, at least 10 kilometers from the scene of fire. The water in the reservoir was only about 100 meters away but there was no way to bring it to the fire. Perhaps God intervened!

Our Bandipur trip in late January too was spoilt by fire, but of a different sort. Watch this space for that story.

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Little Pratincole - Small mercies in a long dry Summer

April 23, 2013, 4:31 am
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A dead laptop and a long dry summer. It's very hard on a Woodcrawler! I haven't been out in the woods for a long while now, unless you count the weekend trip to the dry reservoir to teach a 10 year old driving. Yes, the Little Woodcrawler has learnt to drive the Duster so his papa can keep taking pictures! The best place for a 10 year old to drive is any dried up reservoir bed. No oncoming traffic or lawmen.

Birds are plenty as I mentioned in the last post.The shallow water body means easy pickings for the variety of birds that congregate along the mudflats. These are pictures from the previous weekend. Light was fading but all my friends were there.
Asian Open billed storks

Spotbilled Ducks

Large egret & Grey heron

Asian billed Stork

Asian open bill with Grey heron



Last Sunday, 22nd April, was another trip with packed brunch to our usual haunt. There was a newcomer this time, a beautiful blue jay (Indian Roller), which would take off the minute I stepped forward.




Unlike the other waders here, it wasn't used to my presence yet.












My old friends were completely unconcerned and going about their daily business in earnest! I wasn't too much of a distraction, even to the buffaloes wallowing in the mud!





Brahmini kite


As we packed up from the western end of the reservoir I saw this clown. This little egret had been perched atop a buffalo and he decided to explore the muddy water. I guess something underfoot was making him uneasy so he attempted a take off.





 Much to his embarrassment he fell face first into the water. In case you thought he was fishing, you are wrong. It seemed his foot had got caught in some invisible obstacle in the mud and he egret lost his balance.


























He managed to right himself quickly and take off, only to land a few feet away. Dented in its dignity, but too proud to admit it!






















A month ago, I had driven into a wet patch and had my wheels stuck in the mud and spinning. The car had been trapped for good and eventually got hauled out after a 5 hour frying session in the hot summer sun. That too, after the first truck that came to haul me out also got its wheels bogged down in the sand a few meters before it could reach my car! Eventually the tow truck that came had to struggle to get that truck out, though it only needed a few seconds to pull my car out.

I had been avoiding that patch for a while now because that slushy experience was still fresh in my mind. Though I carry the calling card of the tow truck chap I wasn't keen for another baking of my bald head! It was  my on who suggested we go there again to see how the place was now. The water in the reservoir was disappearing rapidly and the place we got stuck was looking very dry. 

As we climbed the slight rise of shingles we spied a flurry of activity. Little birds running around and swooping over us with shrill cries. There were too many to count but it would have been close to a 100 birds all together in the sky and on the ground. They were running about a small area and suddenly pressing themselves on the ground. Something was up.





These were little pratincoles or the small Indian pratincole, a little wader that was about the size of a common babbler and coloured similarly.They were superbly camouflaged that you'd miss them if you took your eyes off even for an instant.







In flight their short tails and long wings make them look more like the swallow below.








Wire tailed swallow


















We stopped the car at the bottom of the shingle patch and my son got out to inspect the ground in front of us before we drove further. A movement in the periphery of my vision caught my eye. It was then I realized why there was such a buzz around us. We were parked in the middle of a small nesting ground for the pratincoles!


 

I could understand their consternation. Every little plant or rock was an ideal nesting spot for these little birds. Since I had been careful about avoiding protruding rocks and plants I had just avoided a carnage!
These myna sized birds lay eggs on the  ground in a small depression they create and most sources on the web seem tojust copy and paste info found on Wikipedia, that these little creatures breed in Karnataka and North Kerala! There is however one article that appeared in The Hindu that records these birds nesting in Palakkad.



Both, the bird and its eggs are so superbly camouflagedthat you'll miss it unless you look for it. It's not hard because the little bird keeps circling around its nest either on the ground or the air!The eggs themselves look like small pebbles.



In a 20 meter radius around my car, were at least 20 nests. Three of them with 2 eggs in each of them.


After a while these little birds got used to my pointing my camera at them and settled down in their nests.



Once in  a while, it appeared they were taking off to dip themselves in the water to wet their feathers. Perhaps the wet feathers help protect the eggs from the intense heat of the sun.



These birds have a very interesting way to dissuade predators. If they feel that any creature in their vicinity are going to steal the eggs or chicks they do the Dance of Distraction! They run around in circles splaying out their wings giving the appearance that they are hurt. Once the presumed attacker is drawn towards the 'injured bird' they keep moving away farther and farther from their nest. Bad luck for the neighbour if the attacker chanced on the nest next door!




It was a very informative morning for me and an entertaining one for the Little Woodcrawler. I was only wondering how many of the eggs and hatchling (when they came) would survive attacks from stray dogs, jackals, blundering buffaloes and humans. This particular area has been a favourite spot for families on picnic. So if someone drove in without being aware of these little bird's presence a lot of accidental deaths would happen. The only consolation is that this little bird is not on the endangered list. It is in fact classified as 'No Concern' in the conservation status list!

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ADRIFT - A True, Lost & Found Story

June 13, 2013, 10:19 pm
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Yesterday the postman delivered my copy of  'ADRIFT'. The author happens to be my brother-in-law, V Sudarshan, currently the Executive Editor of the New Indian Express.


This is a tale of true grit. It's not fiction, but an hour by hour account of survival at sea. It's a difficult book to put down once you pick it up. Unfortunately for me, my patients might get a little annoyed if they find me peering at ADRIFT's pages instead of their eyes.

I thought I'd just type this brief post so anyone interested in a little adventure can get a copy from 15th June.It's already available as an e-book on Amazon

If you want to know how exotic the setting of this story is, just click the link below.........

ANDAMAN ADVENTURES
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Nila - Life and times of a river struggling for Survival

July 30, 2013, 11:13 am
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Monsoon this year has been ceaseless. It started on the 29th of May and it has rarely stopped for rest till yesterday. That was, it seems, a discrepancy since it has restarted in right earnest today.

For a Woodcrawler, it is a period of hibernation interspersed with very little opportunity to trundle around the woods carelessly. Small drives to Palakapandi and Meenvallam were the only bright spots in a long and grey two months (more of that later). I was getting restless and suddenly an old idea popped into my head again, Project Nila.

Every country, state or city has a river entwined in it's history and geography. If I were to delve into the historical and cultural significance of the Nila or Bharathapuzha I would have to go back in time by many a century and it would not fit into the Woodcrawler's Journal. There is a lot of material available on the topic and I am no scholar in history or geography to make intelligent comments.

The stimulus for this journey is the outcome of my failure to get a single comprehensive source on the internet about the course of the Nila from it's origin to its merger with the Arabian sea. Whatever is thrown up seems to have a common source, the Wikipedia! It seems no one is really making any effort to really gather information worth sharing, just happy with copy & paste! I have no pretensions about being able to finish this very quickly but I've got off to a start.

The Nila or Bharathapuzha is actually formed by the confluence of two of it's major tributaries, the Chitturpuzha and the Kalpathipuzha in Parali. Parallel to the newer bridge across the end of the Kalpthipuzha is an old bridge, beyond which is the confluence. Today, it's surface offers a convenient advertising space for local businesses.


It is too narrow by today's requirement so the highway has bypassed the bridge and the people residing on its either ends, who still use it to get across the river, are stuck in some kind of warp. The surface is now covered by peepals but the bridge seems to be in a much better shape than it's modern counterpart a few meters away.





















That is no surprise because the gentleman who built the bridge was supposed to have given a 100 year guarantee for his handiwork. It has outlasted his promise by another 60 years! God bless Mr. Robinson.


Not only did I discover that the bridge was built in 1852, I also discovered that Parali was actually spelt Purrullie way back in the 19th century! When you look from the Purrullie bridge you can see the meeting point of the two main tributaries combining to form the Nila.

The Nila starts at the end of this stretch of river, taking a westerly direction.


Trying to get closer to the confluence is rather tricky with the monsoon in full swing. I probably have to make a short return trip after the rains slow down  a bit. A little further down the old road is the Parali check dam, one reason why the confluence becomes inaccessible in peak monsoon. It's full and overflowing.
Parali check dam

I was asking a local resident about going to the place where the tributaries actually merged to form the beginning of the Nila but he wasn't very encouraging. He was more interested in knowing whether my photos would appear in the papers or media because he was more concerned about the flooding happening to his land and the houses along the river.

From Parali my journey will be two oppposite directions. Westward to it's mouth at Ponnani and Eastward towards Annamalai Hills in Tamilnadu to the source of its tributaries. I hope to do this stages and at the end of it I should have the most comprehensive internet source on the Nila.

Keep watching this space for more as I travel with the Nila, listening to the stories she has to tell me.....



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A leopard in wet weather

September 13, 2013, 10:12 am
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It was early August, with a monsoon that seemed indefatigable our hopes of a visit to Athirapalli, Meenvallam and the like had been effectively washed away. My son was getting restless and Bandipur was tugging again.

Monsoon wasn't the best time for Bandipur if the idea was to meet one of the predators. However, to us, a trip to Bandipur wasn't about tigers, leopards or dhole. Bumping along the familiar tracks was something we both enjoyed, even if it was wet weather. I decided a day off from school would not be a problem and we packed up and drove off.

9th August, 2013

The rains had been playing havoc with the highways and our usual route through Nilambur would have been risky. We had been reading about landslides all over Kerala and some had occurred on the road we usually took. It seemed, driving through Coimbatore, Satyamangalam and Chamarajanagar was safer though we would be traveling an extra 55 kilometers. An early start was in order since the four lane, widening work on the NH-47 had been revived. An hour's trip to Coimbatore now took twice as much time if you got the timing wrong. We decided to take the longer route through Velanthavalam off the Pollachi road. After breakfast in Coimbatore, we hit the Sathy road as the morning traffic was building up.

The stretch between Bannari and Hasanur goes through the Satyamangalam WLS. We had encountered gaur, elephants and sambar on some of our previous trips. We always slowed down on this part hoping for the unexpected. Nothing interrupted our drive except a grey francolin. These birds are found in small groups, foraging in gassy or scrub forests. I had been seeing a few of them the last few weeks but never managed a good shot of them.



We reached Bandipur Safari Lodge in time for lunch but an overcast sky wasn't  particularly mood elevating. The garden lizard cocked an eye at me, bobbed its head up and down and posed for me, despite a light drizzle.




The evening safari was a wet affair. The terrapin in the muddy pool looked like it had no care in the world. It was obviously enjoying our discomfiture since it did not disappear into the water at the sight of us!

The peacock was drying off.....

.... and even the normally shy black naped hare continued cropping the grass unperturbed by our presence!

The rain had slackened and the sun was peeping out of the clouds. My son suddenly hissed, "Papa, leopard!" At first I didn't see it because I was looking everywhere but forward. Then I saw it. Lying on the grass, not 50 feet from us. It was enjoying the warmth of the sun on its coat. The rain must a have made it cold and it was probably just starting to enjoy the sunshine when we blundered into it's presence.


It lay for a few minutes trying to ignore us but it seemed the clatter of the diesel vehicle made it uncomfortable. It got up and walked off....


.....then it turned back looked at us, went back off the track and marked its territory. Perhaps, it was ensuring that we knew who was the master of this part of the jungle.
 This was an unexpected bonus. We expected a green jungle with dense undergrowth that would hide all the predators but we ran into this magnificent creature, a male leopard in it's prime. All the leopards we had encountered in our trips to Bandipur had been in wet weather. I wonder if I should during the rains if I felt like seeing a leopard again!

10th August. 2013

The rain had let up overnight and the morning's drive seemed full of promise . I hadn't been down the Moyar valley for a long time and the monsoon seemed the best time for that. The jeep track divides into three at Mulapura. The track on the left goes to the dam and it was overgrown. With plenty of water animals wouldn't want to go there. Birds, of course, had no such restrictions!

The track to the right goes to the Moyar valley. It is very tortuous and runs downhill almost all the way. There are times I have wondered what we'd do if we encountered an ill tempered elephant as we went downhill but that has never happened. However, this time we met with this romantic pair.

She was sedately tearing up the succulent grass and munching on it calmly but her boyfriend wasn't looking very friendly.
He didn't seem very happy to see us and was showing signs of his annoyance. Signs of immaturity!
His girlfriend seemed to realize that her buddy was about to lose his cool and ambled over to calm him.
 Her presence seemed to soothe the young tusker and they turned around together to go deeper into the forest.
As the driver revved the engine, the pair turned around, trumpeted at us. Perhaps, reiterating their triumph over us puny creatures.
There are misfits everywhere but none like this chap I saw. He just couldn't avoid his iPad for a two hour safari. I wonder why they holiday in place like Bandipur?!

We got off for a brief stop at the Moyar view point. The river that separates Bandipur and Mudumalai was in full flow. The forest around was lush and green, looking very ideal for a trek!

The evening safari was practically, a wash out as this really wet and miserable peacock will testify.
It kept trying to shake itself dry but the rain wasn't making things easy. 

It just gave us a dejected look before it went back to staring a that 'middle distance', perhaps praying like us, for the rain to stop. 

Even the langur looking heavenward seemed to have a prayer in it's heart, "God. Please stop this rain."

Bandipur is good in summer but it's in it's greenest best after the Monsoons. Besides, the leopards always put on their show for me when it rains!

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The Greener Side of Andamans - Part-1

September 15, 2013, 12:51 am
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I'm not still sure which itch I enjoy most the most. A friendly leech bite in a rain forest or a sandfly nip on the beach. One thing I know, the friendly leech does not transmit any disease but the sandfly does. So if you plan a trip to Andaman's beaches make sure you pack some insect repellent along with your sunscreen lotion!

Having said that, I'm sure you are wondering why you are reading a blog about Andaman's friendlies in a page for woodcrawlers. Yes, this should rightfully fit in my earlier blog on Andaman because the word itself conjures up images of white sandy beaches and blue seas. However is has found it's place in the Woodcrawler's Journal because my trip this time had an agenda the did NOT include the beaches! I wanted see what Andaman's rain forests hid from our eyes, so this would be a trip to test the terrain for future trips!





















Havelock Island has the best beaches in the Andaman's and the Radhanagar beach (Beach No.7) is reputed to be one of Asia's best. I had been here earlier, courtesy my sis & bro-in-law, and this time too I would not have been standing on this beach if not for their pushing!

4th September, 2013

I wasn't there for a holiday. I was doing a short trip of the islands because my brother-in-law's latest book, 'Adrift', was set in Andaman's. Since the book was based on a real life incident and most of the people involved were still in the Andaman's it was appropriate that the book also had an official launch in the place the events unfolded.

I had three and a half days to squeeze in a bit of green with the blue. I was probably the only person who got off the flight on 4th September with the intention to avoid the beaches and take in the greenery of Andaman instead! Of course, the best laid plans of mice and men are bound to go awry occasionally. For starters, the Lieutenant Governor of the Andaman & Nicobar Islands had not been able to give a time so I couldn't fix up anything. Since the entire trip was centered around this event I had to be flexible. I wasn't sure how to be flexible, especially when the places I wanted to go to were is extremely different directions and sometimes across the sea.

Chidya Tapu or 'bird island' needed an overnight stay because evening wasn't ideal in Andaman's in September. Rains and the early sunset would ensure photography was severely restricted. I was told that a four hour trek in the morning would yield results not only in the form of birds but also reptiles. Unfortunately, that never happened because of our fluid agenda. I only got to make a quick evening trip.

Munda Pahar beach



In that half an hour I spent there I saw the emerald pigeon, black eagle, red breasted parakeet, Andaman wood pigeon, collared king fisher, a long tailed parkeet and what looked like an Andaman crake (but I'm not sure because it disappeared into the mangroves quickly). The last five are endemics in these islands. Photographing was an exercise in futility because of the weather and low light. Not only that, I had made the mistake of leaving my favourite birding lens, the Zuiko 300mm 2.8 + EC20 2x teleconvertor behind. I thought, since I was on a short trip I would be better off with less baggage! What a regretful decision?

Here are a few bird pics from Chidiya Tapu......not good at all, but will pass muster as record shots!

Andaman wood pigeons, (too far into the mangroves for a good shot).

Red breasted parakeet

Collared kingfisher

Long tailed parakeet
This pic below is just to show you how bad the light can get in the evenings.
Unedited pic (except resizing), to show the light at 5.12 PM in Chidiya tapu


If you are going birding in Andamans keep the following in mind.
  1. Never combine it with beach trips! Decide if your priority is birds or beaches! 
  2. Days start early, by 5 AM, and night falls quickly. It is almost pitch dark by 5.30 -5.45 PM!
  3. Carry your birding gear, however heavy it might be.
  4. Leave your slow lenses behind (see point 2 above).
  5. A 300mm lens will become a cropper here. Even the 400mm without a TC will be a tad inadequate. The trees in the Andamans are 'HUGE'. You could probably kiss the clouds if you climbed them so if the birds land on the top branches as they always do, you would really have a hard time! 
I know you are laughing, but the fact is, I goofed up and I want to make sure you don't! This was only day one. If you are a true Woodcrawler, you'll have the patience to wait for the next part.....Onam is here. Let me celebrate with my family.

Note: All the words highlighted in reddish-pink are links. Please click them for more info

Travel Facts:

  • The best option to get to Port Blair is by air unless you want to take  long ocean voyage! 
  • All flights land & take off before afternoon because landing and taking off with heavy tail winds is a problem for aircraft
  • This means you land around lunch time and leave before lunch! Since it gets dark early there is very little you can do on the day you land. You can take drive to nearby spots like the Corbyn's cove, visit the marine museum, shop and top off the evening with the Sound & Light show in the Cellular Jail. 
  • Chidiya Tapu is 25 kms from Port Blair. The only place to stay is the Forest Rest House for which the booking is done at the Chief Wildlife Warden's office in Port Blair . A new resort is coming up, owned by Commander Baath who figures in the book 'Adrift'. 
  • Early morning is the best time for birding. You can go scuba diving or snorkeling off Chidya Tapu rest of the day. You can contact Karan Baath, son of Commander Baath for your diving needs.


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The Greener Side of Andamans - Part 2 : Mt. Harriet's Trekking Secrets

September 18, 2013, 7:02 am
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Prologue:I am a certified 'green' guy and that is why I coined the term 'woodcrawler'. One free day, and I'm off searching for some place green to wander around in. So when the trip to the Andamans came up my green antennae started quivering. I wanted to do something different and go off the beaten track. Andamans have, besides the beaches and coral reefs, large tracts of virgin rain forests. While researching for detailed information on trekking in the Andaman's rainforests I realized how little information is available on this. The purpose of this post is to help other woodcrawlers make a start.




Of Leeches & Lizards....


When you get off the flight in the Veer Sarvarkar International Airport at Port Blair the thing that is very obvious are the clothes worn by the passengers disembarking with you. There are all  sorts of reds, blues, yellows and oranges but rarely green! I guess that has something to do with what most people do when they go to the Andamans; jump the clear blue waters of the Bay of Bengal! It is therefore, very rarely anyone gets off the plane in olive green because that is a colour associated with the forests. I belong to this breed of creatures who will search out the nearest patch of green even in a city!

I realized very quickly that my grandiose plans to do three treks and some snorkeling would not materialize for two reasons. The book release function, mentioned in the last post, itself was not sorted out fully so I could not 'fix' a plan. The weather was not looking very good and the timing of our trip to Havelock was also uncertain.  I just about managed to squeeze in a trip to Chidiya Tapu on the evening I landed (see previous post) but a trek there had to be abandoned. Mount Harriet was the next on the agenda and I was determined to do at least one serious attempt, weather notwithstanding.

5th September, 2013

It seemed that the 'best laid plans of mice & men' jinx was following me. I had instructed the driver of my cab to report at my hotel at 8 AM. The drive to Mt.Harriet itself passed through a lot of areas rich in water birds so I thought I'd go by road instead of taking a shortcut by ferry. 8.30 AM and no sign of my transport so I called the driver but he tells me his boss hadn't given him any instruction. I wondered if that driver was deaf or had poor memory. He was the one who told me that he would be there outside my guest house at 8 AM!

Anyway, the taxi operator sent a substitute vehicle a little after 9 AM but I was wondering if it would be worthwhile anymore. As I mulled over the possibilities I realized my car was standing in a queue to board a ferry at the Chatham Jetty! For a moment I felt my blood boil. It seemed that all the drivers I got were either  deaf or morons. I had told him I wanted to go by road and here he was waiting to board a ferry. Then realization dawned on my muddled head; Providence had intervened.


If I had driven by road I'd have reached Mt.Harriet for lunch, considering the amount of time I usually spend coaxing the feathered kind to pose for me! My lunch, Gagan's biryani, was to be picked up by my sister and carried to Ross Island where we were supposed to meet and have a picnic with some carnivorous chitals! So there was nothing on me, save a bottle of water and chewing gum! If I had gone by road, I'd have collapsed due to hypoglycemia in some corner of Mt.Harriet National Park! Luckily, my driver decided that I was an idiot and did the next sensible thing!

The alternate route, and the shorter one is to take the ferry (one every half hour) to Bambooflat across the channel. The ferry ride is 15 minutes and you may have to wait for 10 to 15 minutes after boarding. If you don't have a vehicle of your own you can cross by ferry and hire one of the rickety jeeps standing outside the ferry terminal.

From Bambooflat it is a 15 minute drive uphill. The Mt.Harriet National Park gate is about 3 kms before the summit where you have to pay a small fee for your vehicle and yourself. The nice gentleman did not charge me for my camera. Once you reach the top there is a forest rest house like in Chidiya Tapu, which can be booked from Port Blair. Unless you are very keen on a trek early in the morning you'd be better off staying in Port Blair. There is a short path from the FRH to the view point and there is a board showing the direction to the trek path beside it. The actual trek is some 14 kilometers and goes all the way down the hill to the Madhuban beach. If you can get a boat to pick you up (I'm not sure if it's possible) you can make it back to Port Blair faster.

 It is a downhill trek mostly with a few ups and downs. Going forward is less tiring but the return can sap you if you are unprepared. It is a RAINFOREST on the coast. Humidity is high, and the canopy does not let in much sunlight but it makes you sweat in bucketfuls so carry plenty of water. If you are afraid of encountering wild animals, your fears are misplaced. There are wild pigs but you rarely see them. Reptiles will be there but they won't pounce on you unless you get careless with them. Don't mess with them, just let them be.

The walk had me floored, literally. I had arrived in the wrong season so there was an intermittent drizzle. The ground underfoot was covered with rotting leaves so it was difficult to assess how firm it would be. Sometimes my feet sank into the mud, sometimes it gave way that I almost slipped on my bottom. Throughout the two hours I spent walking the trail I only encountered six people. It was like being in an Indiana Jones movie.



Sunlight rarely penetrates to the forest floor so it was wet and slushy. Even the trees were wet and covered with green moss.

I was hoping to encounter some snakes but it just wasn't my day. There wasn't enough sunlight to draw them out for their warming up. Lizards were everywhere and I'd have missed them if I hadn't been looking for the snakes.





It was obvious they weren't exposed to the presence of humans because they did not attempt to run away even when I went close to them. They just hunkered down and waited for me to pass.

























Every step forward took me into a totally different world. I was alone, with no particular agenda or pressures of the outside world. Gagan's biryani had disappeared from my thoughts 10 minutes into the trek! I do not know how the rainforests of South America or Borneo are but this was a special place, and it is in India!
"My personal pool"

A strange snail

Obstacle course

Reaching for the skies

When you walk this track, it is like God envelopes you in your personal cocoon, with music from the invisible birds and insects around you.

Love does strange things! A tree hugging giant creepper.

Straight out of the movie 'Avatar' ...Mother Tree


I was too busy searching the roots and rotting logs for signs of reptiles that I lost sense of time. The rain forest does that to you. Every step brings into view something beautiful that your feet don't move.








When your feet don't move they are magnets for a certain friendly little creature called the LEECH! Mt.Harriet's forest has it's share of leeches but even the most queasy individual will fall in love with them!They are brown, slimy & very, very tiny compared to some I've seen in other places. I guess that is because there are no warm blooded creatures worth mentioning in these forests. The occasional wild pigs are the only ones the leeches on the forest floor can feed on.

Then, out of the corner of my eye I saw a sudden movement and I thought "Snake!".  Unfortunately it wasn't a snake but there was this little fellow on a fallen log with one leg up in midair.
Spot the reptile!

If that shaft of sunlight hadn't hit his head and upraised leg, he'd have got away without any attention from me. He kept his posture despite my poking my camera almost into his nose. The only thing that moved was that shifty eye!

He was so well camouflaged and I'd have missed him 8 out of 10 times without that sunshine falling on him. It was as if he was part of the moss on the log! That leg was always in the air. I let him be and moved on.

There is a small clearing about a kilometer and a half from the view point, with two narrower paths going off at right angles to the main track. They looked like potential areas for snakes so I went into one of them. It was getting narrower and steeper as I progressed and there was clayey wet soil underfoot. I was alone and with a bad back I decided that discretion was better part of valor. If I went slip-sliding down no one would know. I back tracked, marking a way point on my GPS. I have to come back here again.......

There is so much on Mt. Harriet if you are a woodcrawler. I was thinking, if I could go down to Madhuban beach on the first day, camp over and look for the robber crabs and salt water crocs, then return early morning back to the top; it would be a wonderful experience. Any takers?!

On the way back my driver stopped at a point where you could see the light house. Apparently this was the scene printed on the back of the old 20 rupee note! I didn't have a 20 rupee note, old or new,  but you can check it if you have one on you!

As we reached the bottom of the hill I sighted the only significant bird that morning. A juvenile white bellied sea eagle sitting high on a bare tree. Too far for a good picture but still a picture for my records.

I'm coming back to Mt. Harriet and want to spend two days there........

Travel facts:
  • The best place to stay will be the Forest Rest House on Mt.Harriet so you can get an early start. Dawn comes early on these islands.
  • If you are staying in Port Blair you can reach Mt.Harriet in two ways. A longer (55 kms) drive by road through farm land and forest (if there is a birder in you), or the shorter route by catching the ferry from Chatham Saw Mill jetty to Bambooflat jetty (15 mins on the ferry). You can hire a jeep from Bambooflat to Mt.Harriet but ensure that the waiting time is discussed properly. The jeep drivers usually give you only an hour's stop at the top!
  • Carry food and water. There is nothing on top. The Forest Rest House will arrange food if you are booked in. High energy chocolate bars with water should see you through the trek. Of course, you can carry Gagan's biryani for lunch!
  • If you want to trek, wear a pair of trekking shoes. Your beach sandals are useless. Once the slush get on the sandal you have no grip and your sandal goes one way and foot the other!
  • If you dislike leeches wear a long pant or use gaiters. Leeches are harmless and their bites are painless. As a matter of fact, allowing them to feed on you cleanses your blood!
  • If you have a hand held GPS, carry it along with you, there are no guides for trekking. My Garmin could pick up the satellites despite the dense canopy. AGPS on your mobile phones might be useless.
  • Mt. Harriet is also supposed to be a good spot for birding but I guess my timing was wrong. I heard a few, saw next to nothing. If you plan to carry heavy gear for bird photography be very careful while walking, especially when it rains. Light is not good, and the trees are too tall so you need very, very long and fast lenses. The routine zooms may not be adequate for these forests. 
  • It is a good place to try out your macro & wide angle lenses. Carry them along. I assure you that you'll get better pictures than what I got. I was on a 'test trek' and had a light camera bag!
Watch this space for more on the Andamans............
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The Greener side of the Andamans - Part 3: Birds of Andamans

October 11, 2013, 9:24 am
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This post is a little late in coming. It is exactly a month since I returned from that very short and sweet trip to the Andamans but I haven't been able to post the entire trip report here yet.

View previous post here.

Now with the threat of Cyclone Phailin expected to hit the Odisha coast tomorrow, I was once again reminded about my Andaman trip because I had heard that Phailin had prevented a few flights from landing in Port Blair!
Pic courtesy: http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/show.html

Let me confess. One of the reasons I had agreed to go was the opportunity to do something a little different. When you think Andamans, the first thing that pops up in everyone's mind are pristine beaches. My mind was thinking 'green' instead of 'blue' but it also thought of so many other colours! Andaman has a rich bird population many of which are endemic.

First thing I did sometime in mid-august, before packing my stuff for Andaman's, was to type out a list of birds (and reptile) I hoped to see. I admit, four days with a rather cramped schedule was not exactly ideal for birding, but the optimist in me was not about to give up. My list include some 69 birds, including the Narcondam Hornbill though I wasn't going even remotely close to a boat to Narcondam!

If you are a serious birder, Andaman should be on your list of 'to do' birding spots. The  only issue is that you have to set aside a good 10-12 days for it. Birding in Andamans will require you to travel by road and by boat so you have to be prepared for spending time for that.

The fundamental mistake I made, and I admit it, is that I was a little unprepared. Since the primary reason for the trip was a book release I carried photography gear for the occasion. Bird season was still a couple of months off and I did not expect to see much in that little time I had!

Mistake number 1: My longest and fastest lens didn't make the trip because I wasn't keen to lug some 5.5 kgs to a book launch.
Mistake number 2: I took a 75-300 mm tele-zoom hoping that the digital 2x in the camera would help. (Don't call me an idiot, I know I'm one!)
Mistake number 3: I left my binoculars behind, partly because I wanted to carry less weight on my rain forest trek and partly because I didn't want to be clapped in the Cellular jail for snooping around sensitive military installations!
Mistake number 4: I completely misjudged the weather and didn't carry my rain cover for the gear. It was in the camera bag with the Zuiko 300mm f2.8 that I so injudiciously left behind.
Mistake number 5: I left all my Manfrotto support gear including the tripod, monopod and the 393 heavy lens support behind. I carried only a small tripod. Reason; less luggage more comfort!

So there I was, standing in Andaman Teal House ruing the decisions regarding my gear. Now I have some pictures that I'm really ashamed of!


The rain didn't need a reason in Andamans. It just poured whenever I hoped it wouldn't. The end result was that these are the worst set of bird photos I ever got. Not that I'm a skilled photographer but some of these pics are worse than novice level!

The first birds were the rock pigeons that were fluttering about the roofs of our guest house.



They seemed a little darker than the ones we see back on the mainland but I could be mistaken.
The drongos and hill mynas were too far to get a decent picture so didn't bother considering that I had a trip to Chidiya Tapu and Havelock planned.

Since there was some confusion regarding the book release and the rather unpredictable weather, my trek plans to Chidiya Tapu had to be shelved but I was determined to do a trip just to see how the place was in the rain. A detour to Sippy Ghat was a waste of time. I had got a white bellied sea eagle on my last trip there but this was off season and was hoping for some early migrants but I only lost a good hour driving up for nothing.

An hour in Chidiya Tapu (Bird Island) on 04/09/2013

By the time we reached Chidiya Tapu it was past 4.30 and the light was fading fast. The continuous drizzle wasn't helping either. When you turn left at the Forest Guest house to Munda Pahar beach, the road passes through a bit of forest. The first sign of the rich bird life came into view as we turned a sharp corner. The Emerald Dove was on it evening stroll, picking some juicy tidbits from the road. 
Emerald dove on the road to Munda Pahar

I knew if I stepped out of the car it would be the last I saw of it. I squeezed of a couple of shots before I tried to get out without attracting its attention. I failed in that endeavor and the bird took off.

There were a fair number of cars in the parking lot at Munda Pahar and the beach had it's share of noisy drunken tourists. My eyes, however were on the trees. I could hear the squawking of the parakeets high up in the dense canopy. There seemed to be birds everywhere but I couldn't really get any lined up in my sights. The sky was a somber grey, as if to reflect my mood, which was also getting increasingly darker because of the drizzle. 

I couldn't set my aperture wider than around f8 because the birds were to high up and I needed a little DOF. Anything smaller would mean a slow shutter speed and at 300mm with shaky hands the pictures would be completely out of focus as the one above shows. Even hiking the ISO to between 1600 and 4000 wasn't really helping. At that moment I regretted leaving my big lens behind. There were plenty of birds and in the half an hour I was in Chidiya Tapu I got at least four endemics.
Andaman wood pigeon with an oriole and parakeets. Too far for my lens!

Red breasted parakeet

Collared kingfisher

Long tailed parakeet

En route to Mount Harriet on 05/09/2013
The other place I had in mind was Mount Harriet and more than birds it was reptiles I was hoping to see. My trek in Chidiya Tapu was washed out so I was hoping I would encounter some snakes at least in Mount Harriet. It was a truly wonderful experience to be tramping along alone in a rain forest but it was too dense for any bird sighting. The house sparrows were everywhere including on the ferry to Bambooflat!

House sparrows on the ferry


The only consolation was the white bellied sea eagle sitting on a barren tree and surveying the scene below. Looked like a juvenile and it wasn't looking to go anywhere.


24 hours in Havelock (6th & 7th September, 2013)

Our ferry to Havelock was scheduled to leave at 7.30 but as with all private ferries plying from Port Blair they waited to have the seats filled. Consequently, our departure was delayed by an hour. Hanging around on the jetty along with the passengers were the usual sparrows....


....and also a lone bird whose identity I really wasn't sure of. It looked like one of the plovers (Pacific Golden) in non breeding winter plumage but I stand to be corrected. 
Is this a Pacific Golden plover?

After a rather late breakfast in Nala's at the Havelock jetty we reached our resort a little after half past eleven. The first bird I met was this handsome fellow right near the reception.

Red breasted parakeet
Then a little later as I was strolling around a flash of white caught my eye but before I could get a decent shot it disappeared and I never saw another bird of the same species again, a white headed starling, in the time I was in Havelock.
Spot the white headed starling in this picture!

A black-naped oriole was too well camouflaged and the dense foliage wasn't making things easy.
Black-naped oriole
There were plenty of cackling hill mynas in the resort. I should put it on record here that the Barefoot Resort is itself a great place for birding. You can just walk around the resort property and the birds are all around you.
Hill myna

My niece wanted to eat a wood fired pizza that was apparently a specialty in one particular eaterie called German bakery. Though we had no clue where this place was, we decided to drive around. The evening was free because my proposed trek to the Elephant beach never materialized, courtesy the weather!
The 'Lee Meridian restaurant'& German Bakery!

The German bakery has shifted its location to a place across the road from where it originally was. It is on the road to Kalapathar village, along the beach No.5. They now have thatched cottages too. At the end of the path along the cottages, just beyond the fence is a tree with no foliage, and on that tree was this bird trying to attract my attention!
Juvenile crested serpent eagle
It was also too far away to get a decent shot but it kept turning its head as if to tell me there was more to see in the area.

Sure enough, on another tree a little farther away was a flock of red breasted parakeet. It gets dark in these islands very quickly and there was nothing else to do. We retired early. It had been a long day and we were exhausted.
Red breasted parakeets
Dawn comes early to the Andamans. It is bright by 5 AM and despite a light drizzle  I thought I'd take a chance. At the edge of the Radhanagar is a fairly dense forest and my first bird of the morning was this collared kingfisher, one of the many I saw that morning. There was a stork billed kingfisher that used the canopy to hide from my prying lens. It kept flitting ahead every time I reached withing shooting distance. Finally, it scooped a fish from one of the tide the shallow tide pools and settled briefly on a branch. Unfortunately, there was a very bright back light and I couldn't get to adjust my settings to get a decent shot.
Collared kingfisher
I was hoping to see some waders as I walked up the beach but the only birds I encountered were small flocks of lesser sand plovers. They usually scamper quickly the pause for a few seconds and then scamper off again in search of the small crabs that are found on the sands.

A few meters beyond the public beach is a small shallow stream that flows into the sea. Along its edge is a bit of mangrove and dense vegetation that was swarming with many birds. Red whiskerd bulbuls were very in larger groups than I was used seeing at home.



















There were so many other birds, busy flitting about their morning chores....
Another black-naped oriole

A group of large cuckooshrikes

Scarlet minivets

Large cuckooshrike

Stork-billed kingfisher
As I walked further up the beach the drizzle wasn't letting up and the tide was starting to come in.



There was no point in risking my gear and limbs (there is a lot of large drift wood on Radhanagar  now and my aunt was felled by one that hit her shins!) and breakfast winds up at 9.30 in Barefoot.








I would have time for a bath before taking care of my rumbling tummy. I had been out on the beach for 3 hours.

Breakfast over, we packed up for the return ferry. The ferry was at 4 PM but since check out was at 11 we thought we'd hang around till lunch before catching our cab to the jetty.

There were more birds seeking relief from the rain like me. This emerald dove was too cold to even move a feather despite my standing right under it!
Emerald dove

Andaman drongo

Asian fairy bluebird

Greater racket-tailed drongo

Scarlet minivet females
There were more birds I sighted but couldn't get on camera. A black eagle, common kingfisher, white breasted kingfisher, glossy swiftlet, Andaman crake, a tern and a ?bittern I couldn't identify. 
I have to go back again but the weather pattern has changed completely and I have been hearing of flights being diverted elsewhere recently!

If anyhow, after reading this, you have had an inspiration to go to the Andamans for birding here are a few tips.

Travel Facts:

  1. Choose your season well. Many websites do mention that the monsoon is over by September but the last few years have seen rains spilling over for a couple of months further. Either way, be prepared for fickle weather.
  2. The light is also very unpredictable. It gets cloudy very quickly and if you are in thick rain forest it is a real disadvantage. Day starts early, as early as 5 AM, and the sunset is also consequently, much earlier than then on the mainland. 
  3. As I said in my last post the trees are very, very tall so you need to carry your longest reaching and fastest lenses. If you have a prime telephoto things are easy but try to keep your aperture setting at f8 and manipulate your shutter using ISO settings.  
  4. You will need a sturdy tripod or monopod. The small ones are not of any help. I was trying to take pictures of the waves with long exposures and the tripod gets shaken by the waves. 
  5. Carry a rain cover for your gear. It can rain at the most unexpected moments.
  6. Don't leave your binoculars behind like me. Besides the tall trees you also have obstacles like the mangrove forests and the tides, which come in the way of good close sighting.  
  7. Have your Pocket Guide to the Birds of the Indian Subcontinent by Grimmett & Inskipps handy. You are going to meet a lot of unusual birds that are not seen on the mainland! 
  8. Be ready for my friends, the little leeches. Don't worry, they only drink a fraction of the blood that their mainland cousins feast on! On the beaches you have the sand flies instead of leeches.


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Evolution of a Birder

January 2, 2014, 9:27 am
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It had been a very heavy monsoon and there hasn't been much Woodcrawling for many moons now. My short hops haven't produced much to write about and Woodcrawler Junior's school has also come in the way of any meaningfully long trips. So it is with much anticipation that we are looking for a break in the wild, again. The Christmas vacations have come and gone but we stayed put for the sole reason that it would be the wrong to time to step out. After all who want to run into pesky tourists when you are going for a little relaxation in the wilderness?!

God and the Government of Kerala joined hands to open up a chance to walk in the wild, courtesy the 54th Kerala School Kalolsavam. The Kalolsavam is the annual inter school arts festival and it is to be held in Palakkad this year. It is a big event that sees a lot of talent being thrown up. Some of the winners have gone on to become movie stars. It is therefore no surprise that major clashes and disagreements break out amongst the parents and teachers of competitors vying for the top spots. For us it meant that schools will close for a few days and chaos will reign on the already congested roads of our little town.

Thattekad has been beckoning for a while, and this was an opportunity to take off. My first trip was in late May 2013, the worst time to go, when I went as a speaker at a conference in Kothamangalam. It was more of a recce for a trip in the season and the monsoon washed off the memories quickly. As usual, Bandipur and B.R Hills popped up when they announced the closure of the schools between 19th and 25th January. It would be a good time to go with so many tigers and leopards gallivanting around the parks, even in B.R Hills! It was also the peak bird season so they'd be there in huge groups.

Then my good friends Dr. Ravi Rajasinghand Khusro Ahmed posted pictures of some jewels of the avian world on their Facebook pages. It was like they gave me a little knock on the head, reminding me about my pending trip to Thattekad! Now, we are counting the hours and preparing ourselves for a feast spread over three days. Every night is spent scouring the net for more information about the birds that we were going to see. It was while searching for new books that I suddenly realized that this was becoming a serious pass time.

Photography has been a passion and nature in any form, be it an animal, bird, insect or landscape; always seemed to look better through a camera's viewfinder. Over the years, of all the things that have imprinted themselves on my camera's film or processor, I realized that birds took up the biggest space on my computer's hard disc! I guess, these feathered beauties were drawing my attention away from everything else.

I was a hardcore tiger lover, which was why my email IDs always had a tiger in them, be it tigerfundu2001@... or tigertracker@something.com. My early collection of books will also testify that fact. After Kenneth Anderson and Jim Corbett, my book shelf has 'tiger books' by Ullas Karanth, Valmik Thapar, Billy Arjan Singh and others and despite traveling to many major tiger reserves my encounters with the King of the Indian jungle were very few and far in between.

 
 At that time birds hadn't penetrated into my thoughts sufficiently for me to give them the attention they deserved. My first 'Field guide', if it can be called that, was  the Collin's Traveller's Guide to Wildlife of India, purchased just before a trip to Ranthambore National Park in the 90s. I still have it and I dusted it off after a few years in hibernation for a photo for this blog. I was a rather small book combining details of mammals, birds, reptiles, flowers and trees found in India. It used to be a constant companion till I started going to Bandipur Tiger Reserve (then a  National Park) regularly. I met a gent there who had a DSLR with a big lens (something very uncommon then) and was spouting forth on the birds in Bandipur. I had, at that time, a Fuji S5500 digicam with a 10x zoom. I found that I could get closer to the birds and started paying more attention to them thereafter.


Finding tigers, leopards and dhole, the main predators was no mean task but when it came to birds, that problem was never there. They were everywhere and I really did not have to travel far to see a feathered friend. In fact some close encounters were at home! Gradually, as focus slowly shifted to birds I soon found out that unlike mammals with rather simple names like elephant. gaur, barking deer, sambar, tiger, leopard, dhole and such; bird names where more numerous and confusing.

Till then kingfishers or woodpeckers were just a kingfisher and woodpecker whatever the colour they had! Most yellow birds were orioles and green ones with a fat curved beak was a parrot. All raptors were just eagles or hawks. Now I had to sort them out because in my photographs they all looked different from one another! Besides the Collin's only covered 53 species of birds. So my next book was a pure bird book. I was still a novice and a book with a lot of photographs, like in the Collin's field guide looked ideal.

I had got hold of Bikram Grewal's Photgraphic Guide to Birds of India and Nepal. It was compact and would fit in my pocket easily. I still carry it occasionally despite it being in tatters and held together by packing tape. Unfortunately I quickly realized that it was also inadequate. It was a pocket guide, well suited to being shoved into the pocket of my cargos or jacket, but though it covered 250 odd species it too couldn't answer many queries. However, it is a well laid out book with details of the birds and maps right next to the photos. Surprisingly, photos of a few species were absent.



  

Now I had to upgrade myself again if I were to be considered a serious birder. I had been a member of the BNHS for many years and I get The Hornbill regularly. One of the issues had a page with a picture of Salim Ali's Book of Indian Birds. I knew straightaway that it was the book for me and ordered online. It was the the Centenary Edition of Salim Ali's authoritative tome on Indian birds. It remained, till the 1st January 2014, my most extensively referred bird book. It had detailed drawings as opposed to photographs in my only other bird book which was much better since the quality of many photographs in pocket guide were of poor quality. Salim Ali's book had all the essential information of 538 species of birds found in India. What it lacked, were the maps found in Bikram Grewals' book.




Salim Ali's book remained my constant companion for the next few years along with another book by Bikram Grewal that I found while browsing in a book store somewhere. The Illustrated Guide to Birds of the Indian Subcontinent. It was also a photographic guide like the pocket guide with details of more than 500 birds. It had, like the Centenary edition, description of the bird, details of its food, range, habitat and voice. It also had the distribution map next to the birds photo, something that was lacking in Salim Ali's book.
These two books in combination were a permanent part of my birding gear.  They worked well together because, Bikram Grewal's book had all the information clubbed together alongside the photographs but Salim Ali's had split the book in two sections with only brief details next to the plates. The full descriptions were in a separate section in the back. This meant that if you had to get the details of a bird you had seen or photographed you had to turn to the relevant page in the second half of the book. So in the field the former was better as a quick referral but when you were relaxing after a day in the field the details in the latter was more informative.



 By now I had improved my skills considerably to recognize the differences in plumage of the male and female of a species, mature and immature plumages and also in some cases the change during the breeding season.  It was then I realized what was lacking both the books I possessed. Neither of them had all these variations. The photographic guide had only on photo for every species. Salim Ali's book at least had pictures of the female of selected species. So I was on the hunt again. Every time I went into a book shop, besides books on photography I would scour the sections for new bird books.

My efforts were rewarded when I came across the Oxford Pocket Guide to the Birds of the Indian Subcontinent by Richard Grimmett, Carol & Tim Inskipp. This book is unsurpassed when it comes to the pictures of each bird, its male, female and immature forms and seasonal morphs. It details of some 1300 species of birds found not only in India but also in the neighbouring countries.



However, it too is not without defects. Description of birds are very brief and excludes food habits and voices. The distribution maps are clubbed together separately in between pages and are mixed up. This is rather annoying. When I was making my bird list for the Andamans I had to see the maps to see which birds were endemic to the isles and then flip to the right page for the picture and description. 























































It now means I have a fairly decent collection of books on birds found in India. My Centenary edition of Salim Ali's book remains my favourite. If you had been reading this blog carefully your eyebrows would have shot up. That's because you'd have remembered that I said earlier in this post, " It remained, till the 1st January 2014, my most extensively referred bird book". When, said "till 1st January 2014", I don't mean I've stopped referring to it any more. As a matter of fact January 1st saw the new edition of the book edited by J.C. Daniel land on my table!

My old book is well used. Some of it's pages are falling out and others are torn so it needs to be rested. However, I have to keep referring to it because there is something unique about Salim Ali's book. Beside the fact that it has the most extensive descriptions it also gives you the names of the birds in Indian languages wherever relevant and available.


 It also has some tables that help you identify birds quickly with certain characteristics like colour, tail length, bills and others.






Of course BNHS & OUP need to improve their binding. My new book is already splitting at the seams!


















In a little over two weeks I'll be introducing Skanda to something he has never done before, birding on foot. He has accompanied me on short day trips to Malampuzha and elsewhere but this will be the first time he will be woken up at dawn for a walk in a jungle that is home to some 300 species of birds, some of them a once in a lifetime sighting for many. I am fortunate to be staying barely 4 hours away from one of India's best birding hot spots, the Salim Ali Bird Sanctuary. I'm not taking a huge bird list because I've not become a hardcore birder yet. I just want my son to enjoy the jungle up close and on foot. I'm sure a dash of colour will make it worthhwile and Thattekad is just the spot for it.

As I plan my trip I have ordered two more books. One is Richard Grimmett's Field guide to the Birds of Southern India. It is a little old but I thought it would be a good book to have because most of my birding is confined to three southern states. It should be in my hands tomorrow.

The other book is the new version of the Birds of the Indian Subcontinent by Grimmett, Inskipp & Inskipp. It's on its way......from the US. I guess I'll get it after I return from Thattekad but it will be worth the wait.

I don't lay any claim to being an expert birder but in any case it looks like I'm well on my way to becoming a bird addict. Anything feathered in my vicinity makes me pause in mid-stride or mid-drive! I don't want to be called a bird expert either. I love watching these beautiful creatures go about their daily affairs. It will also help me realize the true meaning of Woodcrawling!

UPDATED 14th JANUARY, 2014

Over the last couple of weeks my bird book collection has swelled. Salim Ali's 'Birds of India' landed on my table in the 1st of January. A book about which I have mentioned earlier.

On the 4th January the next one arrived. The Field Guide to the Birds of South India by Richard Grimmet & Tim Inskipp. If you are looking for a bird book that is handy to carry in the birding areas of southern India, this could be the book you might want to consider. However, be warned, this is not a book for someone looking for all the information of the birds of south India. It has only brief descriptions that might be useful in the field for identifying a bird, but that's about it.

I lack some of the features that was there in the other book by Grimmett & Inskipps, 'Birds of the Indian Subcontinent'. Even that book was a tad inadequate and sometimes, frankly annoying to have to flip pages to find the maps corresponding to the plates.

Then, on the 13th of January, the book that I had been waiting for in anticipation finally landed. A full week before the promised delivery date and well in time for my trip to Thattekad. The Princeton Field Guide to the Birds of India (2nd edition) by Grimmett, Inskipp & Inskipp was delivered by the courier.

This is, in my view, the best birding book for the Indian Subcontinent. It has combined the features of their old field guide, the descriptions from Salim Ali's book and layout from Bikram Grewal's photographic guide in one handy volume. It is twice as thick and heavier than the field guide to Birds if South India.

In this book, unlike in the previous edition, the maps are all placed alongside the description of the birds. The description of birds, their distribution, voice and habitat are also given in reasonably good detail. 
Pages from Birds of South India

Pages from the new Princeton Field Guide
Now if you are getting into serious birding and your activities are confined to southern India these three books complement each other. 


Salim Ali's book gives, beside the description, native names of birds which is very useful in the field where your guide may not be familiar with the English names. The smaller field guide is very handy and the larger book is a treasure trove of information. Happy birding!


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Misty & Mysterious Munnar - Part 2: Marayoor, Kanthaloor & Anaimudi Shola

September 1, 2012, 10:01 am
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 See Part 1 of the series here

26th August, 2012.

After a long while we were on a trip with no fixed schedule. Past experiences in the High Ranges of Idukki has taught me that distances here are measured in time, not in kilometers. We had four days at our disposal so we thought we'd do it in stages.

Marayoor is close to Chinnar so it is a good place to stop if your expectations are not very exotic. You can get decent accommodation and basic food. We reached Chandana Residency in time for lunch. Mr. Jayaram was expecting us, one of the rare guest I guess because there were no others in the hotel when we reached. He seemed a harried man. Most of the staff had gone on leave for Onam and he was doing duty as receptionist,room boy,steward & waiter!

My son found the bed interesting and he went about testing it out, like Mr.Bean in one episode, jumping up and down on it! After it passed scrutiny he settled  down with his tablet. A little siesta was in order and I caught up on my sleep while he was playing. A little after 3 PM we decided to explore around Marayoor.


Pretty decent bathrooms with running hot water all day!




















Marayoor is famous for it's sandalwood plantations, fenced and protected by the Government. We have to pass through this sandal forest to reach Munnar. That is, if you take the road to Munnar through the Vaguvarai tea plantation and Eravikulam NP.





































There is another route to Munnar from Marayoor. It is not used by regular tourists because there is a stretch of 8 kilometers that pass through a shola forest with no tarmac. We had stayed in Marayoor to see this beautiful patch of green, the Anaimudi Shola National Park.

As you climb up the last turn to reach Marayoor there is a petrol station on your right. The road that splits off to the left after that, has a board pointing to Kanthaloor.Kanthaloor is 15 kilometers from Marayoor and famous for it's apples, oranges, strawberries and sugarcane besides a lot of other vegetables and fruits.There are people who do 'farm tourism' to see and experience life on a farm.




















After you cross the valley and climb up to Kanthaloor you can see Marayoor on the opposite side. All along this road, on the rocky outcrops you have dolmen, the tribal burial sites dating back to a few thousand year. There are no bones or skeletal remains now, but they are utilized by agama's and hares as shelters!


























A couple of kilometers uphill the tarred road ends abruptly after Easwari's little shop. We went upto the first curve, not sure if my Punto was capable of handling that sort of rough terrain.










 The forest guard had just locked his cabin and was off for some refreshments before returning for the night. He said we could make it if we went slowly but a jeep would be a better option. We told him we were not going all the way to Munnar since we had to return to Marayoor for the night. He then suggested we go up to a small bridge a little further up.




So off we went, nudging and coaxing a reluctant Punto. I had anticipated a drive like this so I had inflated my tyres a little more than usual. It seemed to be helping. The road was rough but it was worth the trouble despite the leeches. (See previous post)








It was like a scene straight out of the movie Predators, except the only predator we encountered were the hungry leeches!

As we turned back not wanting to torment the car any more a jeep came bumping along, the driver stopped, looked at us quizzically and asked if we had any trouble with the car. I told him the Punto was a little more capable than he thought. He looked disappointed but he had to have the last word. "Sir, you need a jeep to go up this road" he said, and rolled off with his load!



















We stopped at Easwari's little shop to buy some pears and she told us that cars smaller than ours would use that road to go up to Munnar! It is just that the jeep drivers wanted a fare so they discouraged adventure seekers hoping to get hired for a round trip!

When we drove into the hotel a worried Jayaram was at the door. "Have you had dinner, Sir?", he enquired.
"No", I said, and he broke into a relieved smile. Obviously he thought he lost two customers for dinner! We went to bed after an early dinner. Tommorow was for Eravikulam.


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Evolution of a Birder -2: Transition from the Tiger to Trogon

January 30, 2014, 4:49 am
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From a 'tigertracker' to a 'woodcrawler', it has been a long journey. I guess it is not unusual for a normal person to fall in love with something exotic or unattainable. It is a human trait to reach for the moon even when we know that all of us will never get there. I'm a normal human being and so I think I will forgive myself for such simple mindedness.

During my initial years looking at nature with a careful eye, my attention was always drawn by the tiger. No doubt, as the apex predator in all the jungles I visit, the tiger deserved the its place in my mind and consequently all my thoughts about India's wilderness was centered around the king of the jungle. As the years passed and after many a trip into the jungle I realized that the tiger was really like a 'film star'. I saw it more on the screen than in real life!

Most trips to Bandipur and Nagarahole were in search of the elusive tiger or leopard but they were elusive as always. It was then I started noticing the birds. They were everywhere. I did not have to search for them. They just keep appearing every now and then. Crested serpent eagles, Changeable hawk eagle, hoopoes, bee eaters and woodpeckers. Creatures that I chose to ignore in the hope of laying my eyes on the tiger. Even a pug mark was celebrated back then!

The upside of these frequent trips was that I learnt to enjoy the jungle for what it is; a jungle. There would be days when we drove in and after a couple of hours or more of bouncing along the tracks we'd encounter 'nothing of any significance'. After many trips like that especially, on cold or wet mornings, I started enjoying the forest for it's wildness. My eyes took in everything; right from the bare branches in winter, the fresh growth of green leaves after a rain, the dew on the funnel web spider's web on the ground and all other little creatures.



 My first trip to Silent Valley National Park, nearly a decade back when Woodcrawler Jr was barely walking, was the turning point.  I met my first Malabar Trogon in Silent Valley and also my first Indian Pitta, Paradise flycatcher and Emerald dove. The birds were slowly clamoring for attention now.
 
 
 

 The tiger, if it appeared, would certainly get my attention; but the birds were there to keep me busy everywhere. It was also a period when I was learning the ropes of nature and wildlife photography.  My gear, back then, consisted of a rather old Minolta entry level SLR with just two lenses. The longest was a 70-210mm f4.5 -5.6 zoom. I also procured a 2x teleconvertor, with absolutely no idea that it would only add to my misery rather than contribute to making my photography better! It slowed my camera's reflexes so much that either my subject would have left its perch or I'd have a very shaky picture. Some of the pictures above will testify that. All of them were shot in late 2004 - early 2005 in Bandipur (the first 4 pics) and Silent Valley National Park (second 4 pics).

I've come a long way over the last decade and more. Film camera was substituted with a prosumer digital camera with an extended zoom that enhanced my reach. Then I found that inadequate and shifted to a DSLR with interchangable lenses. I don't lay any claim to being an excellent photgrapher but there has been a marked improvement. Now I speak in terms of aperture settings, ISO and shutter speed to my son, who is all of 11 years old and is well on his way to becoming a a serious Woodcrawler. Photography, for me, is about documenting nature in its myriad moods and colours.

Missing a tiger or leopard on my jungle trips don't matter anymore. I look out for my feathered friends and my son s turning out to be a good spotter. The jungle is not only about the big cats. It is also about the birds, flowers, trees reptiles and other mammals. The transition is complete.

I'm not a pure tigertracker now, I'm a WOODCRAWLER.

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Hornbill Heights (Part 1) - The home wars

February 2, 2014, 3:01 am
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Urbanization has its evils. Destruction of patches of green that causes habitat loss for creatures living in it and displaces them. But, it also proves that Nature can take over an heal the damages wrought by man. This is the tale of one such green patch in Palakkad, my hometown in Kerala, and its inhabitants. The main characters in this tale are the Indian grey hornbills, a very common bird seen in our urban areas. They are true survivors and they pair up for life. This is their story.




In the heart of my town, Palakkad there is a bit of land on which stands the Palakkad town railway station. In the old days this was the junction for the meter gauge track from the Palani-Madurai route. There used to be a depot of the Indian Oil Corporation Corporation (IOCL) on the western side of the tracks and we had, and still have, a retail outlet of IOC on the eastern side opposite the Municipal bus stand.
 
The depot is long since gone as IOCL apparently found its running nonviable. They shut it down in 2004 and dismantled the huge storage tanks. Soon after, the meter gauge to broad gauge conversion work was started by the railways but that is not progressing even at snail's pace, because a snail would have crawled from Palani to Palakkad and back a 100 times in the intervening period! To cut the long story short, because this is a bird story and not a railway story, these two happenings had a beneficial effect.

The green belt in the middle is the railway land. Click the link above to go to Google Maps

The railway's yard already had huge trees in it's premises. With the stoppage of rail traffic the goods yard was shut down and human activity came to a standstill. Once the IOCL depot too was dismantled the rear approach to the railway station became an abandoned area. The only activity now is after 9 PM when passengers bound for Thiruvanathapuram come directly to the platform from that side. The IOCL depot is a wild unkempt area now with anti-social elements prowling around within its crumbling walls and poor people using it as a large open air lavatory! The trees grew with gay abandon, till some were cut recently for widening of the tracks. (The photos were clicked with my cellphone camera)








This tree still stands and our story plays out on it


 The buildings are overgrown now and wear a haunted look. However, there are still many that provide shelter for a variety of birds in the heart of my town. These trees were used for nesting by a large number of birds. Egrets were in plenty but after the trees were cut they have not returned.  Barbets too have gone. The drongos, kites, mynas and cuckoos are still around. There is however one tree, a rain tree (albizia saman), that has, mercifully, been spared the wood cutter's power saw. I hope it stays that way because that is where the real estate wars are going on. 

This tree has a hole in a strategic location some 30 feet up on its trunk. For any self respecting bird that would be the hole to which he would bring his mate to! It has been a prized nesting location for a generation of Indian grey hornbills. Come the breeding season, they make a beeline for it and there is serious competition. Of course, only one pair will have the privilege of occupying that cozy little hole!



Of course, such a strategically placed tree hole would have attracted the attention of 'encroachers' when the hornbills were away. This hole was no exception. I noticed a pair of mynas flying around agitatedly. Obviously they had occupied it and now they were about to get 'evicted'!


When the season arrived, as usual,  the annual 'house hunting' started in earnest. It was in late October that I noticed the first pair. They were the earliest to stake claim and inspection went on in earnest. I'm not sure if they are the same pair that nested there last year. Technically this is not the breeding season for the Indian grey hornbill. That comes later between March to June. However, courtship, pair feeding, mating and nest searching starts in November or December.

30th October, 2013





For the next few days they were the main pair, identifiable by a single white tipped black feather on the right side of the male's tail.




8th November, 2013

Then there was a flow of 'couples' to inspect the new 'apartments' on this tree. I counted nine pairs on one morning. They were sitting on different branches of the tree and would patiently wait for one pair to finish their inspection before moving in for their turn.
Pair 2

Pair 3

"Ok. The doorway is fine...."

".......and the inside looks cozy, except for those darned myna's poo!"

Pair 4

Pair 5

While they waited, some of them would go around looking for other tree holes with potential to be their next home.
"No hole here."

"Hmmm.....this place has potential."

"Hey! There is a hole here!"

"Anybody home?"

"Darn it! My beak barely fits!"

Pair 6

"Nice hole here baby!"

".....and a nice view too."

Pair 7
I couldn't get pics of two other pairs.

Eventually it dwindled down to two pairs. The second pair has found another hole on a branch on the same tree but I'm unable to get a clear view because photography is not allowed in railway land! I have one distinct advantage though, my retail outlet lies adjacent to this green patch so I have an unhindered view of the tree and the activity that goes on around it.

Every year the pair that got the right for this tree hole would occupy it for the rest of the season. I have seen the nesting pair go in and out setting it up for living but the mynas too were not giving up. Every opportunity they got they'd also get inside and stake claim.
"Ok! They've gone!"

"Mine!Mine!Myne!....Myna's!"


Over the last few weeks this drama is played out every morning. I'm not sure who gets to occupy the hole at night. Every morning the main protagonists are always in action. When the hornbills are around the mynas keep a safe  distance. Perhaps they are aware that a vicious knock with that huge beak could be fatal. Once the hornbills go on their foraging flights in the morning the mynas scamper back trying to establish their claim. I'm not sure how long they can hold out but they are not giving up just yet.

31st January, 2014

It seems that the first pair have agreed that this hole was where they were going to start their family. Every morning they would do some cleaning despite the mynas raising a ruckus around their heads. 


Even if the female left the vicinity of the hole the male would hang around a little longer.

Then he too would move off after her.....

...hopping and flying in short spurts..

...to bask in the morning's sunshine.
The hornbills didn't seem unduly concerned about the mynas. Maybe they knew that when push comes to shove the mynas wouldn't stand a chance. They were more worried about other birds in the area, the black kites.



The male was giving looks at the kite feeding above it. It seemed more worried about the kites than the mynas looking to occupy their nesting hole.

The initial hesitation passed and it seemed to make up its mind that the kite was no threat to his mate. After all it had a very nice meal to finish.


The mynas were a different kettle of fish. They were more hawk like in their attitude. Hanging around for the opportunity to get back their hole.



The mynas are also probably in their breeding mood and like the hornbills, a myna pair is mated for life. I read somewhere that mynas are messy so the hornbills can be expected to have a hard time cleaning up!

Seeing the mynas hanging around, the male flew down and stuck about the hole for a while. 


Eventually both of them settled on a branch nearby, making sure the mynas did not get back into the hole. 


It is going to be long summer for both the pairs. Who will eventually retain this prime piece of real estate remains to be seen. My bet is on the hornbills. Not because they are bigger and have a formidable looking bill but also because once the female gets in to lay her eggs, she gets sealed in for the rest of the incubation period and while the chicks are in their early days. 

As for the second pair on this tree. They were a very contented looking couple. They had a nest on another branch which was away from prying eyes and my camera's lens. I could just about see them go in and out occasionally
.
A nest that is already setup is a catalyst for romance. It was evidenced by their courtship on the branches. She had a morsel in her bill, and was offering it to him.


 He would take it in his bill gently......

.... then return it to her without swallowing it.

Sometimes he'd take it again, chomp on it.....

......hold on for a few seconds.....

....before returning it to her lovingly again! I thought romancing was old fashioned! After all romance nowdays, is confined to social networking sites and is usually very brief and eminently forgettable! Paired for life seems very strange term as far as us humans are concerned. Perhaps we can take a leaf out of the hornbill's life story.

These two pairs will be under my constant surveillance. I can't wait for the females to get walled in. I'm only worried the mynas will try to break the wall even as the first hornbill pair starts building it. It is a story that is building up. We have another five months to go for it to play out to its end.

5th February, 2014
Things have been happening at the Nesting Tree. 

The Pair No: 1 still continues their war with the mynas and they are still struggling to assert their claim on the best hole in the tree. 

Meanwhile Pair No: 2 have no such problems. They are busy with their courtship and house cleaning. I hope to get a closer access to their hole soon. It also means that the Trilogy is going to have more sequels than I have planned. 

Watch this space closely


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