Daroji - more birding

After the previous evening siesta with the Sloth bears, the next day went in exploring Hampi, the world heritage site and some birding in between. The final day concurred with the Wildlife Week celebrations and yet we got a couple of hours birding on the morning driving around the deeper parts beyond the canal areas.

Intend to cover the heritage Hampi in a separate post altogether...

I had many first sightings on this trip and some notable were the Yellow-throated Bulbul, Yellow-wattled Lapwing, Pied Cuckoo, Grey Francolin, Painted Spurfowl and few others to say. Overall, we finished the excellent trip with over 100 species of birds, about 20+ butterflies and also not to forget insects, reptiles, amphibians added to the comprehensive list.

Following are more images of birds from the trip, let them speak and I will rest!

Photoshop is a powerful and a creative tool if used in an appropriate manner. The photo above after photo-shopping yielded the result below, its all in how you use it!

Daroji - completely Bear'd

The earlier posts here and here. Have a look!

We were witness to an afternoon siesta of the sloth bears, up close and personal and so many individuals together, a sight I have never witnessed till date and probably only get to see in Daroji.

The sanctuary is a small place and infested with problems and pressured on by encroaching land and mining mafia, deforestation and utilization of forest resources by the adjoining villages and as expected it happens that the bears wander out in search of food and there arises the man-animal conflict and in most cases the bears are heavily traumatized and many a times killed. Bears are dangerous enough to face head on especially when they have kids along with them or are in the process of mating, else generally they avoid the humans by scampering away.

The department with the inputs of few individuals working towards conservation have hit upon a novel idea of confining the bears to the sanctuary limits in one way and also fighting the mafia simultaneously and also educating the villagers in the surrounding villages. Remember, they are not captive to be confined in a specific area but are still well and truly wild.

So, in an attempt the high rise rocks in a centrally located area are 'painted' with a mix of 'jaggery' and 'honey' everyday during the afternoons and just like the bees are attracted towards honey, the bears descend down one after the other to have their fill. It's a risky exercise to hear just in case a bear turns up early and the probability of the guard doing the painting job is high, but yet the risk is taken every day just to ensure the bears stay there. Not only bears, peafowls, spurfowls, quails, mongoose visit the rocks and have their share.


At one instance, we saw about 7-8 individuals enjoying their evening siesta, wish that their numbers increase. But, yet the number of bears thronging the rock area have gone down in recent times, reason could be bears being poached, hunted, captured or sadly killed. Personally for me, a long wish of seeing a Sloth Bear up close was fulfilled and that too so many of them together and sure it was fun.

Recently, In an effort to raise awareness and stress the importance of the Daroji Sloth Bear sanctuary, the book 'Daroji - An Ecological Destination' authored by VMR, Samad Kottur, Ganesh H Shankar and helped by numerous others was bought out and needless to say is an exemplary work highlighting the importance of Daroji. I got a chance to see it personally and is an fine work that should be seen by a larger audience.



Some links of it here -
Book on flipkart here
making of the book here by Ganesh H Shankar
Daroji visuals here by Ganesh H Shankar

next up - Heritage Hampi.

Daroji - reaching and Day1

Daroji - Route and Day1

We took the Bangalore-Tumkur-NH4-Chitradurga-SH13-Kudligi-Hospet-Kamalapura and the road stretch on NH4 is great while the SH13 is a two lane laden with heavy truck traffic, yet passable. The last few kms just after TB dam is almost non-existent and you can easily be ridiculed by the non stop honking and the dust and the maddening traffic.

Our agenda was simple, birding all the way… be it the filthy lake on the outskirts of Chitradurga or the canal area at Kamalapur or the FRH campus or the world heritage site Hampi or the fields around Daroji sanctuary and we were amazed by the amount of birdlife in the region what we encountered. Mid way we were also joined by Dr SK Arun and Dr Nagraj from Bellary, both excellent photographers who also helped us in finding many a species, specifically the globally threatened Yellow-throated Bulbul in Hampi and treated us to a sumptuous lunch at the ethnic Mango tree restaurant in Hampi, quite a famous joint there for locals as well as foreigners.

 ( future perfect or imperfect...? )

We were split into 2 groups and as one of them had a delayed start, we in the other group got plenty of time for birding and butterflying on the Nice road and at a junction near Hiriyur where we spent more than a couple of hours. We had lunch at Chitradurga where the deviation is to be taken towards Hampi, we also spent some time at the filth filled lake on the outskirts of Chitradurga town. The drive thereon was a little slow owing to the dense lorry traffic and the last few kms after TB dam is a nightmare and finally we reached the Kamalapur FRH after a not-so-good dinner at Kamalapur village.

We stayed at the forest department rest house/FRH at Kamalapur close to the JLR Sloth Bear resort. A nice place to stay that has options of rooms, tented cottages as well as dormitory and the food prepared by the cook is needless to say, awesome! I relished each of the dishes with aplomb for the 2 days we stayed there. Summers are pretty hot and winters are better (hot in the day and cool in the night) and monsoon months are unpredictable. Watching birdlife is best during the winters and Jan-Feb is the best time for watching the piggy-back as its the breeding time for the bears.

We started off the next day with a lot of canal birding in the morning and mid-way we were joined by Pompayya, Dr Arun, Dr Nagraj to show us more of the species around. Till then, what was a normal activity for us seeing, spotting, shooting all we could see turned into an exciting journey with Mr. Pompayya leading the way; his spotting skills are amazing going by the fact that he could pin point the exact location of the Eagle Owl’s from a moving vehicle. Highlights of the morning birding activity for me were weavers, munias, cuckoo, wagtails, spotted owlets and the eagle owl.

Mid-day we set out on a mission or I would rather state a wish of seeing the globally threatened Yellow-throated Bulbul that is found near the matunga hill at world heritage site Hampi. It was no mean task as it was pretty hot at 12 noon and we were boiling over and carrying our cameras and lugging ourselves searching for the elusive bulbuls was not cool either. Finally, after patient waiting and some persistence by Dr Nagraj, I was lucky enough to sight a couple of the elusive ones while many others missed it by a whisker, not a problem as there is always a next time.

After this 'hot' outing, we were treated to a sumptuous lunch at ‘Mango Tree’ restaurant and the dining area here is a terraced slope overlooking river Tungabhadra and yes the name so because of the big mango tree located right in the middle of the restaurant and I could also say that the restaurant is built keeping the natural settings as pristine as possible. Another specialty is that you need to sit on the matted floor, cross-legged in the typical South Indian style and no footwear is allowed inside the restaurant. The food and the spread is worth every penny and this jaunt is visited by a horde of both local and international visitors.

coming up: bears and more bears…

Daroji - A prelude

Daroji is a small village in the Bellary district of Karnataka, also known as the hot bed region as the weather here is too hot to say the least and of late all the mining barons with their heavy machinery have savaged the entire region so much that finally the Supreme court had to intervene to stop this madness. The damage has been done considerably and I wonder how many years / centuries it would take for it to be set right (being positive that it can be set right!). Another problem that is evident here is the politics and the influential people who more or less control all the mining and have ‘billions’ stacked in their kitty, very much evident by their jazzy lifestyle armed with heavy bodyguards, fleet of high-end suave vehicles and not to miss helicopters, jet ships, luxury trailers too! Phew!



In spite of all these, there are some pockets in the region that are thriving (albeit, how long…?) in terms of nature and we should be grateful to some of the ‘brave’ selfless people who are fighting it out every single day against the land mafia, encroachments, mining mafia and all the wrong-doers in preserving what is left and also educating the local people and importantly students on the importance of conservation. Samad Kottur, a wildlife activist, Santosh Martin, honorary wildlife warden of Bellary district and Pompayyaswamy Malemath, a local politician and wildlife activist are few names that pop up immediately who are doing a thankless job against all odds, all for the love of nature and preserving what it left!

(Image: Deepa Mohan; L-R: Pompayya, Santosh & Samad)

An excerpt from Deepa Mohan’s article on the thealternative.in says “One of the most successful efforts in the field of conservation in South India is the effort for Sloth Bears at Bellary, Hospet and Hampi in Karnataka. Today, the Daroji Sloth Bear Sanctuary stands as a heartening reminder of what sincere individual effort can accomplish against powerful and moneyed forces.”


“The hilly areas surrounding the Hampi region are believed to be the mythological ‘Kishkinda’ valley where Jambavantha the Bear (obviously the Sloth Bear) lived. Following the efforts of former Minister and Congress leader M Y Ghorpade, the state declared 5,587.30 hectares of Bilikallu reserve forest as the Daroji Bear Sanctuary. The area is also rich in iron ore and mining which became a huge, unregulated, and depredatory industry here. No ethics or guidelines were laid down or followed in the unbridled plundering of the land’s resources and the Sanctuary was under serious threat as the vested interests in the mining industry combined brute muscle power with high finances.”

I had been to Hampi earlier but never to Daroji or Kamalapur and a email invite from Deepa ensured that would happen. The green cartoonist Rohan, Samrat, Thara, Manjula, Rama Warrier were the others in the troupe and we had 4 awesomeness days of birding, bear’ing and doses of heritage, all in a single package.

(Image: Deepa Mohan, some of us with Santosh/Samad/Pompayya)

We did birding along the canals and fields, thanks to Pompayyaswamy for his guidance, his spotting skills are excellent, we visited the Daroji sanctuary and saw plenty of bears licking the jaggery paste, we went around the heritage Hampi site and had a sumptuous meal at the Mango tree, thanks to the doctors Nagraj and Arun SK for that outing :)


Keep an eye, plenty more to come...