Munnar, rich in biodiversity

Our Munnar trip not only mesmerised us with its natural beauty but also amazed us equally with its richness in biodiversity. It is just in a single place that we found so many varieties of animals,birds and plants that I could not resist myself from writing a blog post about it.

 We spotted this fantastic looking insect while we stopped our car  to take some landscape photos on our way to Munnar.

Cricket.

  On our way to Munnar we were always accompanied by the beautiful melody of some bird.Finally we spotted the singer.....a hill myna.

Hill Myna

Hill Myna

  At Attukal falls, though the water was less at this time but thankfully not  the birds. We got some colourful bulbuls who were initially shy of the camera but gradually got used to it and gave us some lovely poses right away.

Bulbul

  This is another beautiful bird we spotted,but sadly we dont know the name.

Unknown bird.

  We saw this beautiful racked tail drongo.

Racket tail drongo

  We spotted some sunbirds from our hotel.

Sun bird

  Munnar with its beautiful tea gardens all around.

Tea gardens 

  Spice trees are common in Munnar. This is a cardamon plant.

Cardamon plant

  Black pepper grown at almost all spice gardens.

Black pepper

The climber

  I think these are nutmeg trees we saw in a plantation near Attukal Falls.

Nutmeg tree

  A little far away from Munnar are rubber and coffee plantations.

Coffee tree

Rubber trees

  Now the BAD THINGS.....

  There were some really really horrible things we found in Munnar.

  At Echo Points the hawkers were selling key rings that were stuffed with real dead insects like butterflies, scorpion, shell animals. Very distasteful to see an industry has grown up that is manufacturing these key rings stuffed with dead animals........really don't know how many animals are mercilessly killed everyday for this.

Dead insects in key rings

  Inspite of being such a lovely place Echo Point is full of trash and litter.The place is fully littered with plastic cups,water bottles, old rugs, and a lot of such non bio degradable stuff. It is high time the people become responsible before this place turns into another big dustbin.

Trash at Echo Point

  At Mathupetty dam we saw many shacks selling boiled quail eggs. I would have no problem with this if quail eggs were commercially produced just like
the poultry eggs we get in markets. But since sadly that is not the case, there must be some restriction on the sale of quail eggs.

Quail eggs for sell

  Well a place will be rich in its bio diversity as long as the people are aware and conscious towards its preservation. If the concerned authorities fail
we as tourists can definitely do a little help. Lets stop buying or appreciating things that can disturb the thin line between existence and extinction. After all we should not make all animals dodos.

Roses at Attukal Falls