Nagarhole, call of the wild

Dear 2014,

 I am really happy that you have finally arrived.I was waiting for you for sometime, as you are expected to come to me with some goodies - new aspirations, new hopes, new bunch of sick/casual leaves. But I want one more thing from you. As you know I am very very fond of my readers, so I want you to shower my dear readers with good health, love and of course a bag-full of travels.

 I hope all my readers and we have a good time with you.
 Happy New Year 2014

 Loads of affection,
 Soma and Ankur


  Reminiscing all our last year travels, we realized that we had been to some of the most beautiful places. So to bid a decent goodbye to 2013, we decided that a trip to Nagarhole will do justice. The good thing about Nagarhole is that it has never disappointed us. So we have developed some soft corner for this place in our heart.

Last time we saw a bear, this time a pack of ... 

  In-case you are interested in the route and all please go through my previous blog here.

  Nothing much has changed, only the road from Hunsur to Nagarhole has now become better. A lot of homestays has come up in Kutta, though we preferred to stay at the same homestay that of Mr Narendra Pattu's.

  The first thing the we saw on entering the forest checkpost was a beautiful kingfisher. We were just a few metres inside the park when I spotted this beauty sitting pretty on a branch. Ankur stopped the car, we took a few pictures and moved on. Next some more metres inside we saw a big family crossing the road. There was father boar,mother boar, aunt boar, uncle boar, brother boar, sister boar and baby boar. By the time I had my camera ready they had vanished from the frame.

White throated kingfisher

 We were driving very slowly when Ankur spotted a female plum headed parakeet. After that a bunch of parakeets flew screeching over us. Since it was afternoon, not much of birds or animals were sighted. We were a little down.
Last time we saw so many deer, sambhar and gaurs....where were they now? Thankfully a herd of deer cheered us up. We were soon driving past them towards our homestay.

Plum headed parakeet

  On reaching Mr Pattu's homestay, we freshened up, had our lunch and decided to visit the Iruppu falls before taking the 3:30PM safari. Iruppu falls is roughly 15 Km from Kutta(place where we stayed) and the fall looks heavenly.

Iruppu Falls

  We were back to the National Park safari counter before 3:30 PM(the evening safari timing starts from 3:30 PM). There were more people than usual who had come for the safari. The reason was the temporary cancellation of morning safari due to the national tiger census.

  Safari was okay. We saw plenty of spotted deer, few sambar deer, langur, malabar squirrels and a lone tusker. After getting down from the safari bus both of us wanted to have a short drive inside the forest before heading back to our homestay.

Langoor Mom and Kid

I want some too. :)

Spotted Deer

Sambar

Malabar giant squirrel

  We drove almost a kilometre when we suddenly saw some animals at a distance. We slowed our car and then we saw something interesting. It was a pack of wild dogs. There were about eight of them and they were sitting in the shade and panting maybe because of the evening heat.

Wild Dog

  The next day morning we took a stroll inside Mr Pattu's coffee garden. The coffee trees were full of red beans. Morning is the time for birds. We saw at least 30 different species of birds, most of which we could not identify. Well I am still in learning phase.. :) Among the ones, we could identify, were racked tail drongo, ordinary drongo, plum headed parakeet, crimson backed sunbird, coppersmith barbet, asian koel, minivet, asian fairy, orioles, bulbuls, rose ringed parakeet.

Crimson backed sunbird

White cheeked barbet

Rufous Treepie

Coppersmith barbet

Coppersmith barbet

Crimson backed sunbird

Asian Fairy

Plum headed parakeet

Racket tailed drongo

Coffee seed

  After a hearty breakfast we set off for Bangalore. Since we had to take the road inside the National Park, this time we saw some action.....Yes the same pack of wild dogs that we saw the day before was on hunting spree. We had to drive at a very very slow pace since the pack was on the road.They walked at least half a kilometre before us on the road, before finally chasing a wild boar and disappearing into the forest. We were amazed by the coordination of their hunt. As the pack moves forward, a random few  will go little inside the bushes dettaching a little from the main pack, sniffing along their path and then again aligning themselves with the pack.

Pack of wild dogs in hunting spree

  Ankur has a good eye for birds as well. He was quick to spot a beautiful black rumped flameback woodpecker. I wanted to photograph this bird for a very long time; finally my wish came true. He also spotted a beautiful cuckoo enjoying its early catch of the day. I spotted some babblers. Sightings of hill myna, bee eater and paradise flycatcher followed. 

greater flameback woodpecker

Babbler

Cuckoo

Hill mayna

  When you see a lot of wild animals your expectations also go up. Similar thing happened with me too. I was hoping fervently to catch a glimpse of a leopard but soon I realized that we had reached the exit checkpost of the forest.

BR Hills, outing with friends

So far, all our trips were solo, myself, Ankur and our Sparky. This trip was little different, and hence special.

  We were accompanied by 6 friends, so it was a big gang of 8 wanderlust Bongs. We hit the roads at 5:30 in the morning. It was cold in Bangalore; but to escape the city traffic we had no other choice but to leave the comfort of the quilts and head for an early start.

  We took the Bangalore-->Mysore Road-->Maddur-->NH209-->Yelandur-->BR Hills route. The road was good except for a small patch from Maddur till NH209.

On the way to BR Hills.

On the way to BR Hills

On the way to BR Hills

  Before I forget and get into other things let me tell you about a very sad incident that we came to know once we reached our homestay in BR Hills. When we had about 15 km left to reach BR hills, we crossed a pond. There were about a hundred people who had gathered. We passed the place thinking that there must be some religious festival going on. We reached our homestay, had some tea and went out for a stroll. When we came back the owner of the homestay told us there has been an unfortunate incident. A baby elephant that had come with its mother to drink water has fallen into a pond and has died. Then we realised why so many villagers had gathered near the pond while we were coming.

  We called our friends who were coming in another car, for they still had not reached. They told us that the road had been blocked by some male tuskers who had come out from the wild after the mother elephant sent out trumpets for help. They were forced to take another much longer route.

  Okay, now back to our trip report. We stayed at Rajathadri hill villa. Rooms are good but food is pathetic. Since none of our friends had arrived before us,  we decided to take a quick drive till the forest safari office(at K. Gudi) just to enquire about the safari timing. There is a 15 km of forest stretch between our homestay and the safari office. We drove really slow in case some unexpected inhabitant of the forest would greet us.

Spotted Deer

  For a long long time we saw nothing, but many varieties of birds. We saw oriental white eye, kingfisher, babbler, minivet, munia, dove, barbet, bulbul, painted stork and ibis. Then all of a sudden, I noticed something moving very slowly by the road in the bushes. It was a big mongoose. We stopped our car to take a picture; but then alas. A car zoomed past from behind and the mongoose quickly disappeared into the bushes.

Spotted Deer

  Some metres further we saw some spotted deer grazing peacefully. Next we said hello to a lone elephant. Once we reached the safari office, we were informed that there are safaris twice a day - one from morning 6:30 and
the other from evening 3:30. Safari charge is Rs 400 per person. Each safari is of one hour duration and they take you inside the forest in jeeps. We saw some wild boars and a big magnificent beehive within the safari office premises.

Wild Boar

Hive

  While coming back there was nothing much, except spotted deer. When we came back to our home stay, one group of friends had already arrived. We decided to have lunch as we were all very hungry. The last remaining group of friends informed us that they would be reaching late; because they were chased by wild elephants and were forced to take a different route.

  The evening was well spent. It started with the adventurous tale of our last group of friends being chased by wild elephants. Then followed a camp fire, which was accompanied by ghost stories(an attempt to create an eerie atmosphere), that each of us had heard from our fathers, uncle's or grandfathers.

The gang of eight bongs

  We decided to take the next day early morning safari.

  Dinner was pathetic. Food was tasteless and on top that, some of us found hair in the food. When reported, the owner did not provide us with any other alternate food saying that he did not have any other arrangements.We had to survive on a half stomach. Biscuits, cakes and chips, that we had as backup, helped us for the night.

  The next day, we started early as we had planned to take the 6:30 AM morning safari. The jungle check post gate opens at 6 am. We were 5 minutes early so had to wait. By 6:20 we were already standing in the safari booking queue. Though we were the first in the queue but some local bus drivers who had brought tourists, got their tickets before us. These things happen.....


  Our group got one jeep at last. The jeep was small but everyone accommodated with a happy face. We were not much lucky with the trip either, all that we saw were spotted deer and a few sambar. We saw some birds, wrangled tail drongoes, common drongo, a beautiful flame back woodpecker, blue jars.

Tuskar

Young Sambar

Oriental white eye

Bee eater

Painted Stork

Kingfisher

Pigeon

  Back to homestay and after a quick shower and breakfast, we headed back for our home sweet home Bangalore, with a small de-tour to the famous
waterfall Shivana Samudra. Finally one more sentence before I finish - Although we did not see much of wild life and our high anticipations
were hurt, it was one of THE most enjoyable trips, all because of the lovely gang of 8 Bongs :)

Shivanasamudra

Time of visit: 14th Dec, 2013
Onward route: Bangalore->Mysore rd->Maddur->NH-209->BR Hills
Return route: BR Hills->NH-209->Kanakpura road->Bangalore

tags:- br hills, shivanasamudra, k gudi, safari, jungle, camp fire