Nature trails around Bengaluru - Gulakamale lake

ORANGE was the flavor of the day and all of us were orange happy and so were the birds who flocked the orange tree that made it a orange spot for people like us. Nature is so colorful and so is Butea Monosperma with its bright orange flowers attracting hordes of birds and butterflies to offer its nectar, yes here I'm referring to the 'Flame of the Forest' tree also known as the 'Palash tree' ('Muttuga' or 'Muttulu' in Kannada).

As we took a detour to Gulakamale via Bannerghatta road avoiding the NICE road due to the traffic pile up, this tree shining orange with the rays of the rising sun falling on it caught our attention a long distance away and we just could not get away from the hot spot and all the activity happening there.

A brief description of the tree as cited by our Guru-G 'Karthikeyan Srinivasan' on his blog:
"This tree when in bloom is indeed a sight to behold, particularly so when the forest around it is dry and most trees bereft of leaves. The Flame of the Forest too, like many other trees that share the habitat sheds most of its leaves before putting forth the bright, yet pleasing, orange flowers arranged that are placed in clusters on its branches. The flowers are visited by a host of organisms – birds and butterflies. An early morning birding session in the vicinity of this tree during its flowering season is rarely disappointing. It can be propagated from seeds."
Karthik's blog here - http://www.wildwanderer.com/journal/ Do visit and you will definitely thank me for it :)

Common Myna, Jungle Myna, Rosy Starling, Chestnut tailed Starling, Tailor bird, Tawny Bellied Babbler, Rose ringed Parakeet, Loten's Sunbird, Purple Sunbird in hordes kept visiting and flying out of the tree in groups and batches. The commotion of birds was so audible that all our ooh's and aah's could not be heard at all.

When the tree is in full bloom, you don't get to see any leaves (very few left) and it's a rush of orange everywhere as you admire it's beauty and appearance. Once the flowers fall off, the barren branches become more visible till the greens start appearing again. Till the flowering season, the tree is full of dark green leaves and the cycle continues into the next season.

As per Wikipedia, this plant kills mosquitoes - "The Mosquitoes are attracted by the smell and color of the flower. They lay eggs in the liquid within the flower but that eggs will never hatch. The Mosquitoes that touches the fluid can never escape from it".

After an extended stopover at the tree, we moved reluctantly ahead to the Gulakamale lake as the morning sun was still in his elements glowing everything that came in his contact. Here again the sun's rays bore a wonderful reflection on the waters and that
presented a lovely sight to us.

We were a pretty big group this time around and all of us were interested in something or the other either be an insect, larvae, butterfly, twig, tree, bird, bee or an silhouette, everyone including the kids were busy either observing or photographing it.

As the others moved ahead, a decent sized bird caught my attention on a tree nearby and on further slithering investigation revealed it to be the Common Hawk Cuckoo sitting high in the canopy and calling out meticulously.

As we went around the lake, up into the rocks and down by the bushes and near to the water yet far away on the road, the sightings increased by the minute and there were quite a few 'good catches' for the day.

(picture courtesy: Deepa Mohan)

After all the savoring our minds and hearts had done, the stomachs were banging and howling for some attention and they were pleased when presented with an assortment of multi cuisine 'brefus' (yes, breakfast as DM calls it) containing Idli's, sandwiches, bread-butter, cakes and biscuits.

Yellow browed Bulbul, Blue faced Malkoha, River Tern, Oriental Honey buzzards were found around the lake area in multiples. From the lake after the osum brefus, we visited a small stream close by that has a temple too called the Gulakamale falls but no such falls existed there.

The place was serene, somewhere deep in a remote location but unclean and a mess with bottles and plastics around, sad state of affairs as with the other spots near Bangalore. Still birdlife was quite good in the area with sightings of the Flameback woodpecker, Babblers, Blue bearded bee eaters, Black shouldered Kite, Kestrel and host of other birds all around us.

On our way back after the mind boggling sessions and still orangish in our minds, we took the same route back and stopped near the orange tree to get more feel of the orange tree. Even as now the sun was almost on our heads, the activity though waned down was still on and it seemed though it would continue to be till dusk or till all the flowers withered away.


An osum Orange day with an osum gang being osum company :)

Nature trails around Bengaluru

As I'm lagging behind with many of my posts and with hardly any time to sit on them, I'm clubbing few of my outings of bird watching and nature trails in and around Bengaluru into one single post. Most of these were with the UGS (Usual Gang of Suspects) as Deepa Mohan aptly calls it!

Well, winter mornings are not the time to be sleeping at home and we made the most of it wandering to any place that was interesting around. Wonderful sessions and lip smacking 'assortment of breakfast' from many homes to keep up our energies and unending humorous discussions are the main ingredients of the UGS nature trails and walks every time.

Valley School area (Rishi Valley School):

Me, Amit and his friend Srinivas went on this trail around the campus, probably one of my longest trails in and around the campus. We traversed on the road next to the gate and then took the track into the campus at the far end and then wandered off on some trail only to get lost for a good hour or so and finally managed to trace our way back into civilization. Well, getting lost had its advantages as we got to see the Verditer flycatcher, Fantail flycatcher antics and lots of Sunbirds on that route and a whole lot of elephant dung in many places. Buzzards, Wire tailed Swallow, Verditer were first time sightings for me in this place. Amit and Srinivas were first timers here and enjoyed the off trail and birding activity.

Route: On Kanakapura road, 100 mtrs after the NICE junction, take the right turn towards Rishi Valley school.

Tips: Don't wander alone, go at least in pairs, don't wander off the track - the forest behind the school campus connects to the Bannerghatta forest and finding you would be difficult. Carry water and snacks as nothing is available around.

Bird watching highlights:

Buzzards

Oriental white eye

Verditer flycatcher

Tickell's blue flycatcher

Purple sunbird

Purple rumped sunbird

Crimson backed sunbird

Common Iora

Fantail flycatcher

Tailor bird

Great tit

Eurasian golden oriole

White cheeked barbet

Coppersmith barbet

Wire tailed swallow

White breasted Kingfisher

Ashy prinia

Drongo

Rose ringed parakeet

Red wattled lapwing

Jungle babbler

Spotted dove

Eurasian collared dove ...

Hulimangala trail:
Wander along the Bannerghatta road towards Anekal and you get to many trails mostly near the villages around that are wonderful birding spots and Hulimangala is one such place so near to us, yet so far away :)

Deepa Mohan, the mastermind behind all these walks, coordinated with many of us and present in the group this time were 2 elderly ladies - elder only by age and not by enthusiasm. Hulimangala is a beautiful hamlet with those beautiful tall majestic trees and a lovely water body and a perfect place for birding and buttering.

Checklist (thanks to Sudhir naik for compiling this super fast):

Little Cormorant 
Little Egret 
Grey Heron 
Purple Heron 
Eastern Cattle Egret 
Indian Pond-Heron 
Oriental Honey-Buzzard 
Black-shouldered Kite 
Black Kite 
Brahminy Kite 
Shikra 
White-eyed Buzzard 
Common Kestrel 
Indian Peafowl 
Purple Swamphen 
Red-wattled Lapwing 
Common Greenshank 
Wood Sandpiper 
Blue Rock Pigeon 
Spotted Dove 
Rose-ringed Parakeet 
Asian Koel 
Greater Coucal 
Mottled Wood-Owl 
Spotted Owlet 
House Swift 
Common Kingfisher 
White-throated Kingfisher 
Lesser Pied Kingfisher 
Indian Roller 
White-cheeked Barbet 
Coppersmith Barbet 
Barn Swallow 
Red-rumped Swallow 
White-browed Wagtail 
Paddyfield Pipit 

Red-whiskered Bulbul 
Common Iora 
Brown Shrike
Oriental Magpie-Robin 
Pied Bushchat 
Plain Prinia 
Blyth's Reed-Warbler 
Booted Warbler
Asian Brown Flycatcher 
Purple-rumped Sunbird 
Scaly-breasted Munia 
Common Myna 
Jungle Myna 
Indian Golden Oriole 
Black Drongo 
Ashy Drongo 
House Crow 
Indian Jungle Crow

As we had to rush back, we had to skip the mandatory brefus and what a osum outing this was :)

Kaggalipura trail (Fred's place):
Just on the periphery of the Bannerghatta park, we went on another trail near Kaggalipura and precisely behind the small property owned by Fred Pais and his wife Claire who are a delightful couple to be with. Me, DM, the Managolis and Kannand's were in attendance with their kids on this trail. Usually a person from the estate comes and guides us around the hillocks and dense foliage, but as nobody were available, we made it on our own not venturing too far away from the estate, lest we get lost in the Bannerghatta forests.

The sunrise was fantastic, birding was excellent, breakfast osum and finally all of them ganged upon to target me and my bachelorhood, gosh! somehow escaped unscathed :)

(can you spot the bird?)

Bird checklist (as I can recall now):
Oriental honey buzzard
Blue bearded bee eater
Small minivet
Oriental bush lark
Golden fronted leafbird
Shikra
Common Kestrel
Asian Koel
Purple rumped sunbird
Eurasian collared dove
Spotted dove
Red whiskered bulbul
Red vented bulbul
Barn swallow

Useful links:
Bangalore birding blog - http://www.bangalorebirding.blogspot.in/
Deepa Mohan's FB albums - https://www.facebook.com/media/albums/?id=587058877

Thattekad birds II

Read the earlier post here

Photo courtesy - Amit Krishna

With a unplanned trip, called Gireesh and he reluctantly agreed as we were only 2 of us, next was the hectic task of booking tickets - all that I could manage was the last 2 seats in the 7pm KSRTC Volvo Multi Axle bus to Muvatupuzha (enroute Kottayam) from Bangalore and the return journey too in the last 2 seats of an similar service. I generally rely mostly on KSRTC (Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation) services as they are efficient, time keeping and generally good (the bus being filled to capacity is another testimony for their efficient and reliable services).

It was a smooth transit from Perumbavoor to Kothamangalam to Thattekad in the local privates buses, the only hindrance being the Malayalam language, still could manage with the people speaking broken English :) Gireesh's home stay is right inside the sanctuary gates with a couple of more houses around and is in an excellent location. As we landed, Gireesh was out with a group on the morning trail and we met his wife and later his mom who told us the guide would be available in the next hour or so.

Sanu was our guide for the morning session, and it was almost around 9am when we started off, a little late for early morning birding. The roosting Brown Hawk Owls were our first captives for the day and we saw them almost the entire day perched in the same place dozing peacefully. The lake just beside the main road is another spot for Kingfishers and the common water birds like the Darter, Coots, Moorhens and a few migrants if you are lucky. As we entered the trail inside the sanctuary, there was absolute silence with fewer calls here and there just like 'a lull before the storm' and then the frenzy started everywhere. The canopy is high and thick and the birds perch far away and its no easy sighting them forget capturing them, its a tough task and many a times I had to back out owing to neck pain. Chestnut winged Cuckoo, White bellied Treepie, Drongo Cuckoo, Brown breasted flycatcher and a whole lot of Woodpecker were all lifers for me ( in the sense seeing them for the first time ) and to top it up, the Malabar Trogon made a brief appearance and so did the treepies', drongo's, sunbirds, oriole's and a hell lot more...

In an hour or so, we had sighted so many species and most of them first time for Amit and few of them for me too and we were enjoying every bit of the fun. Back at the homestay after an eventful morning session, we met Manisha Shah and Falguna Shah from the cities of Mumbai and Ahmedabad who were here for birding too and we would be going out in the same group in the later part of the day for those elusive Frogmouths.

For the evening session, we both along with Manisha and Falguna and a 3 'phoreners' were taken by Gireesh to the nearby Bhoothatankettu and Idamalayar dam region for some more birding activity. Gireesh knows nook and corner of the region and various roosting spots of many birds like the Frogmouth or different Owls and he is so accurate in sighting them and he knows their behavior too.. incredible to say the least! 

As the Frogmouths were missing from their usual spots, we went to a nearby small stream somewhere in the middle of thick jungle terrain and waited for the frenzy that was about to begin. The birds come to the stream to quench their thirst and have a bath and you can sit at a distance and silently observe all the fun that unfolds, you loose track of the time spent when doing this. White bellied Treepie's, Orange thrush, Rusty tailed flycatcher, White bellied blue flycatcher, Indian blue robin and many others paid a quick visit and entertained us, another good session and got to see some new species again. 

Sun goes down too fast and it was quite dark at 6pm and finally Gireesh searched out a lone Srilankan Frogmouth perched on a dead branch about to start for the day. With absolutely no light, we had to use the torch carried by Gireesh to sight and capture the elusive beauty. Frogmouths are so very difficult to identify even if you are standing right next to them as their camouflage is so very brilliant. They choose to roost on dead branches and their body color matches the surroundings and they are very still and that makes it all the more difficult to see them. 

This was the only individual we got to see and we were pretty excited about this sighting. After dinner, Gireesh drove us around for some nocturnal sighting of the Owls and Frogmouths, but all that we saw was the Jerdon's Nightjar right on the middle of the track, another first time sighting for me!

Next day, woke up to Gireesh's call at 6am (we were so damn tired of the long journey from home and all the walking and running for the entire day), we headed out to a nearby hillock passing through some rubber plantations and climbing up to get an wonderful view of the sun rising in all its glory. Elephant dung was all around and leopard scats too and that itself was quite exciting news early in the day. 

Here, another kind of frenzy started with the Malabar Grey Hornbills flying in from all over the place, I presume we saw nothing less than 50 individuals flying all around, it was a mela out there with many trees fruiting and these hornbills basking in the golden sunlight. Oriole's were all around and so were the many kinds of bulbuls, sunbirds, barbets, bluebirds, minivets and many others, it was a feast for the sore eyes.

The Black Baza was missing and so were the raptors except the honey buzzard that posed for us coming in from nowhere. All of a sudden the surroundings were reverberating with the alarm calls of a frantic barking deer very close in the dense thickets in the valley region beyond the hillock we were standing and in all probability it should be an leopard considering the fact that we saw their scats on the cliff we were standing on. The calls were so near and so loud, I'm sure he would have seen us and avoided coming into direct view of us, unluckily though! Back at the homestay, after breakfast we headed out to an secluded place for some quite birding and were not lucky to sight anything great in the afternoon sun.

After lunch and some rest and a small walk through the trails, Gireesh took us on the final ride to some nearby places to possibly sight some Owls and drongo cuckoos' instead we returned sighting the Whiskered tern, pygmy woodpecker, stork billed kingfisher and few more species. Falguna and Manisha dropped us till Kothamangalam and it was an uneventful journey back home from there.

Ideally 3 days is some good time to spend here and that is precisely my plan for my next visit to Thattekad and a re-visit to Gireesh's place. A wonderful birding trip to say the least and will surely not disappoint the birder in you :)

Checklist:-

1. Ashy Drongo

2. Ashy Wood swallow

3. Asian Brown Flycatcher

4. Asian Drongo Cuckoo

5. Asian Fairy bluebird

6. Asian Paradise flycatcher

7. Black Drongo

8. Black headed Cuckoo shrike

9. Black hooded Oriole

10. Black naped Oriole

11. Blue throated flycatcher

12. Brown Hawk Owl

13. Brown capped Pygmy Woodpecker

14. Cattle Egret

15. Chestnut tailed Starling

16. Chestnut winged Cuckoo

17. Common Flame backed Woodpecker

18. Common Iora

19. Common Kingfisher

20. Common Koel

21. Common Myna

22. Crested Treeswift

23. Crimson fronted Barbet

24. Darter / Snake bird

25. Eurasian Golden Oriole

26. Golden fronted Leafbird

27. Great Tit

28. Greater Flame backed Woodpecker

29. Greater Racket tailed Drongo

30. Green Bee eater

31. Grey Wagtail

32. Grey headed Bulbul

33. Heart spotted Woodpecker

34. Hill Myna

35. Indian Pond Heron

36. Jerdon's Nightjar

37. Jungle Babbler

38. Jungle Myna

39. Lesser Yellow naped Woodpecker

40. Little Cormorant

41. Loten's sunbird

42. Malabar Grey Hornbill

43. Malabar Parakeet

44. Malabar Trogon

45. Orange headed Thrush

46. Oriental Honey Buzzard

47. Oriental Magpie Robin

48. Plain flowerpecker

49. Plum-headed Parakeet

50. Pompadour Green Pigeon

51. Purple rumped sunbird

52. Purple Sunbird

53. Red Wattled Lapwing

54. Red vented Bulbul

55. Red whiskered Bulbul

56. Ruby throated BulBul

57. Rufous Treepie

58. Rufous Woodpecker

59. Rusty tailed Flycatcher

60. Scarlet Minivet

61. Spotted necked Dove

62. Sri Lankan Frogmouth

63. Stork billed Kingfisher

64. Whiskered Tern

65. White bellied blue flycatcher

66. White bellied Treepie

67. White cheeked Barbet

68. White throated Kingfisher

69. Yellow browed bulbul

You can see Amit's blog here!