Feathered Bipeds & Me.
Wednesday, November 17, 2004
Birding in the Nelliampathies
"The Nelliampathies", is a good W.Ghat habitat about 60Kms from Palakkad, in Kerala.
Officially part of an avifauna survey of the nelliampathies, myself & Jemson, made a trip to Nelliampathy, hoping to take some pictures of western ghat species. From the 10th afternoon onwards Jemson had been having a mild fever, but we felt it would wane within a day or two, & carried on with the trip. Since it was planned at a pretty short notice of 2-3 weeks (given that tickets would have to be booked well in advance for the long diwali hols), we had to travel during the day.
On 11th November we somehow caught the 6:15am morning train to coimbatore, inspite of having overslept a bit (we had reservations). The connection train (coimbatore-cannanore fast passenger) took us to palakkad. We caught the 5pm bus to Kaarapaara from the Palakkad KSTRC bus stand. The journey from Palakkad to Kaikatty originally takes just 1:45 hrs. The bus had a 20 mins halt at the Palakkad private bus stand, 30 mins halt at the Nenmaara bus stand (for the Muslim bus conductor to break his fast), & stopped at every small bus stop on the way. The stay for the night had been arranged at a spare room at the forest quarters at Kaikaaty, which we reached at 7:45 pm.
Luckily, Sabu, an associate of the watcher was waiting for us, & he left after we "checked-in", leaving us the keys. When we went to the ITL Resorts office, we were told that we could check-in the next day at 12 noon. Early in the morning, Sabu arrived, we handed him the keys, took our stuff & went to the ITL Resorts office, where we left our bags and went for a morning stroll, armed with our equipment & scared by dense cloud cover. Not a single frame was shot during the total 8kms we walked and all we got were 5-6 leeches on our legs, after which we returned to the main road & de-leeched ourselves, but still bleeding. While walking back, rain also showed up, but not heavy. We returned & checked-in & freshened up. That afternoon it was totally cloudy with brief spells of "instant sunshine", so we limited ourselves to the vegetable garden right outside our balcony. Here we got shots of magpie robins, red-whiskered bulbuls, ashy drongos, black-lored tits, some butterflies & a noisy malabar grey hornbill. In the evening & the night, it rained like hell. We thought, "let it rain & quench the clouds". Come the next morning, but the skies still seemed to be having an endless supply of clouds being pumped in , inspite of the heavy gusts of wind that kept blowing away the clouds. So, again we were kept mostly indoors by the weather.
Luckily by 2pm, the skies cleared up & we went for a stroll towards Nooradipalam. There was one bend in the road where we got nice activity. Saw white-bellied tree pie(tried pix with flash), paradise flycatcher, brown-cheeked fulvetta, racket tailed drongo, got some good "hanging-white-eye" pix, though i had to use flash. But I missed a real swell black-lored tit photo-op (it was sitting & preening), 'cos by the time i took my camera out, propped the tripod, he had left, thanks to Jemson’s antics @ trying to shoot him.
We returned to the room, Jemson went in to rest, & i proceeded to walk towards Pulayampaara (2kms) & 1km beyond, but the habitat was not good, as it was more-or-less human-inhabited area. The next day morning we retraced the Nooradipalam route, but went beyond the earlier day's end pt, to see the view from Kesavanpara. This trip gave us lots of butterflies (@ kesavanpara), including a juvenile Brown shrike , ruby-throated bulbuls & black eagle. Here took a couple of sceneries using my kyocera P&S.
For lunch, we met up with Praveen & P K Ravindrettan, who were the last two survey members(4 others had left earlier due to personal/ weather reasons). After lunch we proceeded to Palakkad, where we spent the nite @ Praveen's house.
By now, Jemson's mild fever had still not receded & his eyes had become yellowish. Inspite of the state-wide hartal the next day(15th), we somehow made it to the Palakkad Town Railway station & took the connection to palakkad jn. We sent Jemson home to kochi for better medical & family attention. Myself & Praveen took the erstwhile Bokaro express to Coimbatore & the intercity express from there to Bangalore. Enroute, we got an sms from Jemson confirming a Hepatitis-A infection.
By 11pm, 15th November, we were back at our respective homes.
Officially part of an avifauna survey of the nelliampathies, myself & Jemson, made a trip to Nelliampathy, hoping to take some pictures of western ghat species. From the 10th afternoon onwards Jemson had been having a mild fever, but we felt it would wane within a day or two, & carried on with the trip. Since it was planned at a pretty short notice of 2-3 weeks (given that tickets would have to be booked well in advance for the long diwali hols), we had to travel during the day.
On 11th November we somehow caught the 6:15am morning train to coimbatore, inspite of having overslept a bit (we had reservations). The connection train (coimbatore-cannanore fast passenger) took us to palakkad. We caught the 5pm bus to Kaarapaara from the Palakkad KSTRC bus stand. The journey from Palakkad to Kaikatty originally takes just 1:45 hrs. The bus had a 20 mins halt at the Palakkad private bus stand, 30 mins halt at the Nenmaara bus stand (for the Muslim bus conductor to break his fast), & stopped at every small bus stop on the way. The stay for the night had been arranged at a spare room at the forest quarters at Kaikaaty, which we reached at 7:45 pm.
Luckily, Sabu, an associate of the watcher was waiting for us, & he left after we "checked-in", leaving us the keys. When we went to the ITL Resorts office, we were told that we could check-in the next day at 12 noon. Early in the morning, Sabu arrived, we handed him the keys, took our stuff & went to the ITL Resorts office, where we left our bags and went for a morning stroll, armed with our equipment & scared by dense cloud cover. Not a single frame was shot during the total 8kms we walked and all we got were 5-6 leeches on our legs, after which we returned to the main road & de-leeched ourselves, but still bleeding. While walking back, rain also showed up, but not heavy. We returned & checked-in & freshened up. That afternoon it was totally cloudy with brief spells of "instant sunshine", so we limited ourselves to the vegetable garden right outside our balcony. Here we got shots of magpie robins, red-whiskered bulbuls, ashy drongos, black-lored tits, some butterflies & a noisy malabar grey hornbill. In the evening & the night, it rained like hell. We thought, "let it rain & quench the clouds". Come the next morning, but the skies still seemed to be having an endless supply of clouds being pumped in , inspite of the heavy gusts of wind that kept blowing away the clouds. So, again we were kept mostly indoors by the weather.
Luckily by 2pm, the skies cleared up & we went for a stroll towards Nooradipalam. There was one bend in the road where we got nice activity. Saw white-bellied tree pie(tried pix with flash), paradise flycatcher, brown-cheeked fulvetta, racket tailed drongo, got some good "hanging-white-eye" pix, though i had to use flash. But I missed a real swell black-lored tit photo-op (it was sitting & preening), 'cos by the time i took my camera out, propped the tripod, he had left, thanks to Jemson’s antics @ trying to shoot him.
We returned to the room, Jemson went in to rest, & i proceeded to walk towards Pulayampaara (2kms) & 1km beyond, but the habitat was not good, as it was more-or-less human-inhabited area. The next day morning we retraced the Nooradipalam route, but went beyond the earlier day's end pt, to see the view from Kesavanpara. This trip gave us lots of butterflies (@ kesavanpara), including a juvenile Brown shrike , ruby-throated bulbuls & black eagle. Here took a couple of sceneries using my kyocera P&S.
For lunch, we met up with Praveen & P K Ravindrettan, who were the last two survey members(4 others had left earlier due to personal/ weather reasons). After lunch we proceeded to Palakkad, where we spent the nite @ Praveen's house.
By now, Jemson's mild fever had still not receded & his eyes had become yellowish. Inspite of the state-wide hartal the next day(15th), we somehow made it to the Palakkad Town Railway station & took the connection to palakkad jn. We sent Jemson home to kochi for better medical & family attention. Myself & Praveen took the erstwhile Bokaro express to Coimbatore & the intercity express from there to Bangalore. Enroute, we got an sms from Jemson confirming a Hepatitis-A infection.
By 11pm, 15th November, we were back at our respective homes.
Monday, November 01, 2004
Birding at valley school
Indra obviously has something against us birders. Having yet another long weekend lined up, we started making great birding plans(Birding trek to kodchadri, etc). But, come friday & Indra seemed to have become jealous. He sends his army of clouds and blocks out the skies. Must have been a sudden depression in the bay of bengal that gave us a "depression".
Saturday went unbirded, thanks to unwelcome cloud cover & other personal work. So we decided, come what may, we will bird on sunday morning. With the castle-in-the-air kodchadri plans being brought down like cards due to the weather, we picked to make a morning trip to valley school.
We left at 8am from BTM. The cloud cover was strong, but the drizzle was very weak enough to give me enough courage to take my equipment out. The activity was good, with flocks of rufous-bellied warblers, yellow-eyed babblers, redvented bulbuls & chestnut tailed starlings loitering around some lantana bushes. But unfortunately couldnt shoot any of them.
As we proceeded to the fallow land adjoining the farmed plot, i came across a small garbage dump which promised to give me superb indian robin shots, cos a pair were frequenting a couple of small perches among the paper/plastic garbage, inspite of my presence. But they wouldnt sit still enough for me to focus &
shoot. A pair of pied bushchats also later joined, and i managed a couple of shots of a female perched on an outstretched bare twig.
A couple of long-tailed shrikes(aka rufous backed shrike) were also seen in the area. The calls of blyth's/booted warblers were audible, though none dared to venture out into the open. Larks were seen doing their floating display.
Patience ran out by 11-11:30am, by which the clouds showed no sign of giving way for sunshine. As murphy's law goes, if there is anything that can screw up birding, it will happen. We mumbled "by tuesday, blue skies will be back". But, fortunately it came a day early. Monday afternoon, back were the blue skies, inviting me to go birding somewhere, but lost sleep from sunday night lured me to a comfy monday siesta.
I hope Indra stays at home next weekend! :-)
Job
Saturday went unbirded, thanks to unwelcome cloud cover & other personal work. So we decided, come what may, we will bird on sunday morning. With the castle-in-the-air kodchadri plans being brought down like cards due to the weather, we picked to make a morning trip to valley school.
We left at 8am from BTM. The cloud cover was strong, but the drizzle was very weak enough to give me enough courage to take my equipment out. The activity was good, with flocks of rufous-bellied warblers, yellow-eyed babblers, redvented bulbuls & chestnut tailed starlings loitering around some lantana bushes. But unfortunately couldnt shoot any of them.
As we proceeded to the fallow land adjoining the farmed plot, i came across a small garbage dump which promised to give me superb indian robin shots, cos a pair were frequenting a couple of small perches among the paper/plastic garbage, inspite of my presence. But they wouldnt sit still enough for me to focus &
shoot. A pair of pied bushchats also later joined, and i managed a couple of shots of a female perched on an outstretched bare twig.
A couple of long-tailed shrikes(aka rufous backed shrike) were also seen in the area. The calls of blyth's/booted warblers were audible, though none dared to venture out into the open. Larks were seen doing their floating display.
Patience ran out by 11-11:30am, by which the clouds showed no sign of giving way for sunshine. As murphy's law goes, if there is anything that can screw up birding, it will happen. We mumbled "by tuesday, blue skies will be back". But, fortunately it came a day early. Monday afternoon, back were the blue skies, inviting me to go birding somewhere, but lost sleep from sunday night lured me to a comfy monday siesta.
I hope Indra stays at home next weekend! :-)
Job