Agumbe Recap (final part)

Read the earlier posts from Agumbe here...

Snakes, Frogs, Insects, Bugs, Beetles, Spiders were there everywhere... literally! Once the sun goes down, all you can hear are the croaks but finding the specimen out is a task and after all the search you see a handsome little fella croaking away to glory concealing himself under a leaf in the middle of a shrub or a plant.

And behind the same croaks you find the silent slithers looking out for a meal and aren't they beautiful! There is a lot of wrong notion about snakes and one is that all of them are venomous. Nope! There are only a handful of venomous snakes found in India whose bites are lethal.

The most commonly found are the Rat snakes or the Checkered Keelbacks whose bites are not lethal for humans.

Please get over the notion and start appreciating their beauty. They have a role to play in the ecosystem and they do it diligently, we just have to let them be what they are and where they are!

(a beautiful Vine snake on the lookout for a meal...)

(I thinks Yellow Bush Frog... will update the Id soon...)

(In between... we gorged on the simple yet delicious homely food!)

(incredibly beautiful Green Vine Snake)

(the man and his passion...)

(A vociferous croaking frog...)

(the Malabar Pit Viper... one of the venomous snakes)

(in the order of ascending height... Ashwini, Gowri, Prashanth and YT at KERC camp)

Agumbe Recap II

Read the earlier post here...

Agumbe is a 'macro' world and you get plenty of opportunities to see them and shoot them. Macro life forms are everywhere...literally right from the leeches that predate on you to the small insects, the colorful dragonflies and damselflies, beetles and bugs of various sizes, the moss dipped in showers gleaming in the occasional sunlight and not to forget the droplets that collect everywhere making it truly a magical place to wander in.

Here are a few frames that I've tried to capture from there... have a look through and do feel free to leave your comments :)

(ain't a beautiful pattern... nature is so beautiful even without life)

(wasp... maybe...!)

(a beetle ready for a meal...!)

(a damselfly... the differ from dragonflies by having closed wings)

(a nemesis for all :) 'Leech')

(Checkered Keelback snakes looking out for dinner...)

(a grasshopper soaked in rain...)

('beetle' 'leaf'...)

(orchid... not sure though!)

(a pretty, spiny caterpillar)

Await for another post to end the series from Agumbe!

Agumbe recap

It's been an year since I visited Agumbe along with like-minded, photo-enthusiastic friends, all credit to Yash bhai for making this happen, one of the destinations I had so longed to visit.

visit for...? what...?

yes...

the greens, the macro life, the vipers and others, endemic frogs, orchids, lichens, moss, spiders, etc, etc, etc...

We stayed at the Kalinga Centre for Rainforest Ecology - KCRE at Guddekere, near Agumbe run by herpetologist, researcher and a humble person Gowrishankar (he and his wife blog at http://pogirigowrishankar.wordpress.com/)

Agumbe, for information receives very heavy rainfall and is the wettest place around here and is very rich in bio-diversity and most importantly is the home for the king of kings, the King Cobra (or Kalinga Sarpa in Kannada) - Ophiophagus hannah.

The KCRE is a new setup, all managed by Prashanth (camp resident) and Gowri who is currently pursuing his PhD and is here during visitor days. Ashwini was the intern during our visit and is now doing her Phd from the Pondicherry University. Simple accommodation, simple food and the only chance to absorb some great learning about snakes from the snake man himself who has rescued hundreds of snakes and who has also worked with Romulus Whitaker.

I had a long standing wish of sighting the King (in the reptile world, King Cobra is often as King) and I didn't want to miss such an opportunity. For the two and a half days, we were there... we were always on the lookout for mainly snakes, frogs, toads and other interesting life forms, be it spiders or insects or even tiny flowers.

Let me share a few photos through a couple of posts...

(Cat Snake resting after a heavy meal, notice the bulged body)

(Bi-colored frog)

(a spider...)

(photo-pose, its only the outer shell that is left)

(Reddish burrowing Frog)

(greens, greens and greens everywhere...)

more to come... be tuned!