deponti

Today I was told that the sighting of the Black Stork, that I posted about

here

was a first for Bangalore! What a thrill that was!

This is not a thrill that the experienced birder will understand. S/he is probably used to making rare sightings and first records all the time...but for an L-board, the thrill of having made a record sighting is quite high....

It's the same in our monthly family quiz group. When, at my most ignorant, I stumble upon the right answer, my happiness in doing so (and gaining all of 2 or 5 points for my team) is far greater than the greatest Mastermind champion could experience, sitting in that black chair answering questions on, say, "The Use of the Semicolon in Shakespeare" or some such chosen subject!

So let me savour the moment, all too soon, it will be gone....

And a word of gratitude here to Karthik, who is a great guide..he points out the direction and lets one arrive at the destination by oneself.

If

Karthik

comes, can moths be far behind?

Yesterday, he told us that this beautiful

OLEANDER HAWK MOTH

was sitting on the staircase of my apartment, so mohanvee and I went off to photograph it...





Meanwhile, he had also spotted these two...a lovely gold-and red one:





and an even prettier "pied" moth....





I guess all moths and butterflies know an expert when they see one, and consider Karthik a kind of foster moth-er....

Couldn't resist that!

On both my visit to Bannerghatta, and to Turahalli, Galibore, and Ramnagara, I noticed a wide variety of butterflies flitting along in their various colours. Of course, the time of day (mid-morning) was not ideal to photograph them, as that is their nectar-gathering time and so they were most restless, and would hardly settle for more than a second or two anywhere.

So of course it was the butterflies' fault that I got mediocre pictures....having allocated the blame correctly, here they are:


The

BLUE PANSY





( a list of fritillaries )


Let me end with this beautiful


BLUE-WINGED WASP





This post is dedicated to


Karthik

who is an authority on butterflies!

Update:

My NTP friends, Vikram Hiresavi, M V Shreeram, adarshraju ,Vineet, and Uma
have all, as usual, taken the trouble to help me out with the ids. :) Thank you!

KM and I walked down to the History Museum to hear the Twilight Tuesday concert, but it had been cancelled due to the heavy rain.

So we walked back; but the twilight had something else to offer us:





I first saw one; then we saw two...and then, several, twinkling in and out of the bushes and trees....when we were de-lighted (the sun was down), we were delighted with this unexpected treat!

I immediately thought of the evening that Karthik had called us over, each year, to come and watch the few glow-worms in the park on Nanda Road ...

The glow-worms were easy to photograph compared to the drifting fireflies! This was the only not-terrible shot that I got.

We didn't get to hear the concert, but...we got some "light" entertainment that we had not expected!

Update: The firefly show goes on every evening, and to my daughter's disgust, one of the fireflies (or as they are also called, "Lightning bugs") got into the house, and before I caught it in a cup and released it outdoors, I snapped it:

We went, after Karthik's alert, to see the glow-worms again this year:

http://bangalore.citizenmatters.in/blogs/show_entry/942-the-glow-worms


Here's my post about it last year ...



Where do they come from? Where do they go?
Why are they so tiny? Why do they glow?
Why do just some of them have wings?
What, exactly, is "bioluminicence"?
Is it a word that even makes sense?
Have you wondered about all these things?


If so..

click

here

I went, as usual, to meet all the people who took the NTP....this time, there has been a full contingent (the accomodation at the Bannerghatta property of JLR is 8 X 2, and 17 people had registered, which meant that three of the young women have had to share one tent!

I realized that I knew several members beforehand, but it was nice to meet others for the first time, too!

The group was a very nice one, including a mother-daughter duo, and another young couple who had brought their delightful five-year-old, Arohi, along with them. Arohi and I had a great time swinging on the suspended tyre in the campus, and trailing around the place while the others were getting edified!



Here's the very intelligent, articulate little girl (sorry, young female person):




( more about the NTP Nature Trail )


Well, here's most of the NTP group as they came up the forest trail, with Karthik in their midst; they are so earnest about learning as much as they can, that weekend!




I do hope they enjoyed the program as much as I enjoyed meeting all of them (though I really had to chase up some of them to get their email ids and details!) and I hope they will be active members of the egroup, too!

Update: the minute I left, the group apparently sighted the Eurasian Eagle Owls, the only debate being whether there were two or three of them...*&^% Owls!! this is the first time I have gone on the Nature Trail with the NTP and not seen them!

Mr Thomas finally said he couldn't get spares for my wonderful MLC, the Canon S3 IS...so I am off to the Canon Service Centre on Brigade Road, to see if THEY can get whatever part it is that needs to be replaced....

Things have been VERY hectic lately....but we did find the time to go and see the annual visit of the glow-worms...


http://bangalore.citizenmatters.in/blogs/show_entry/942-the-glow-worms


There were just four of them that day...haven't been able to go again! :(

I don't need to mention how I value the NTP that I took in March 2006. It's given me access to Karthik's immense knowledge, and brought me a lot of on-the-net and face-to-face friends, all of whom have unstintingly helped me in my learning about birds and wildlife.

So let me announce the next NTP....

Here's the email from JLR:



----------------------------------
Greetings from Jungle Lodges and Resorts Ltd.!
We are pleased to inform you that the dates for the next Naturalists Training Programme has been finalised. The details of the programme are as follows.


( all the details if you are interested... )

I have personally found the NTP of immense value... in terms of information and friends and the whole learning process!

This time we tied up with Wipro to do a cleanup at Muthathi; and on Saturday, the 30th August, we set off in two Wipro buses, with 49 volunteers. Sandeep, Anush and I went in Karthik's jeep as Sandeep needed to go ahead and make arrangements at Bheemeshwari as well, regarding the plastic pickup by JLR. That's going to be a different post (which will be an email to the Clean and Green group) so here are some images of the forest creatures I got during the trip:


On the way to Bheemeshwari, we were very lucky to spot the endangered GRIZZLED SQUIRREL in the canopy:






Of course my camera was still packed away, but at least one of the two squirrels was visible long enough for me to be able to get it out and get a couple of shots, before it, too, vanished into the green!

( several other creatures here )

This was the first time I saw this colourful folk musician on the banks of the Kaveri.






He had a plucking instrument, with four strings, which was really beautiful, and kept time with the castanets you can see on his fingers; he sang of the gods and goddesses of the area... Muthathi, Bheemeshwari, and Biligiri Ranganna.


A lovely day, rather marred by a migraine which was in its third day...but that didn't stop me from going; it did stop me, however, from picking up as much trash as I should have.

And yes, it did prevent me from looking for birds..I didn't shoot a single one, can you imagine that? We did, however, spot two MALABAR GREY HORNBILLS as we drove towards Bheemeshwari.

Karthik had told me that he would be free this weekend, so I tried to organize an outing; the weather was not very predictable, so he said that rather than Manchinabele, which was much further away, we should go to Lalbagh, where if it rained, we could do some id'ing of hot idlis and coffee at any nearby Darshini...

We were a round (well, none of us are ROUND, really, but...) dozen...Karthik the NTP Guruji, and the NTP members were, in alphabetical order, Adarsh,Anjali,Geeta,Pallavi,Prasanna,Vittal, and me; and then there were, also in alphabetical order, Vittal's son Adu (it should be Jayaditya, but I want to put him first!),Vittal's friend and potential NTP-taker Girish, Nisarg, whom I have met at various birding and wildlife locations, and Pallavi's husband Preetam, who just took Sudhir Shivaram 's course on photography, and was there to try out all the newly-learned stuff....


(  LOTS of pics if you click, or you could skip! )

A lovely weekend, spent with a lot of friends...what could be nicer?

anushsh helped Karthik put up a page on the common flowering trees of Bangalore on his website, here at




http://www.wildwanderer.com/journal/flowering-trees/


I think it was very nice of Anush to do this, and help a very knowledgeable person share some of that knowledge with others. (I will not, of course, mention here that kalyan has also helped Karthik put up the website; as it is, he is saying that I have added "too much masala" to my account of him in my JLRNTP article!)

I am touched when I see youngsters who make such good-hearted gestures. Way to go, anushsh!

I have been having a really rotten internet connection and have not been able to post about the varied and wonderful sightings we had at the Biligiri Ranganna Hills property of Jungle Lodges and Resorts...but while I can, let me make a quick post about a short outing I had yesterday....it turned out to be a mini NTP outing!

Karthik had mentioned that he had been seeing glow-worms in a park near his home. Each year, for a few days around this time, he has been seeing the glow-worms in his own garden; but this year, he didn't find them there, but in the park where he goes for his evening walk.

Since I was interested, I called up Pallavi, Vittal , and anushsh. Vittal brought along his wife Santrupti and son Adu (dare I call him very cute?!) and we all trooped off to Karthik's place where he gave us delicious Darjeeling tea, and we then walked (risking life and limb in the traffic, may I add) to the Nanda Road park.


( several grainy, not-good, but documentation pics of glow-worms if you click here )

Whenever we shone light on the glow-worms, they responded by bringing down their own glow, which was brightest in the dark. It was very interesting to watch these little creatures; Karthik says not very much is known about them, including the reason why they appear only for a few days, and only at this time! We were lucky that Karthik notices these tiny creatures, and is willing to share his observations with us....so we got to see the Glow-Worms of Nanda Road! :)

anushsh has also made a post, with lots of links, at

http://anushsh.livejournal.com/92250.html

http://bangalore.metblogs.com/archives/2007/11/the_pixetra_club.phtml


And a couple of images from the trip:






That was a view of the wooden planks leading to my cottage...




And while on the subject of "my cottage", here's the view of the Bhadra Dam catchment area that I had from there:






A lovely trip, though just for a day...

Did an overnight trip to the Bhadra property of JLR which I had wanted to see for a very long time. So when amoghavarsha was going to be the "photography-guide" for a group of people who are members of the Pixetra Club , and Karthik, too, would be there at the time, I decided to join up and join in. For me, it was a learning experience on both wildlife and photography fronts. Will be making a Metroblogs post about it....

But meanwhile...it was not a wildlife trip per se (though of course, on safari we sighted ELEPHANTS, SPOTTED DEER, BARKING DEER, MONGOOSE, and --as usual--- the recent pugmarks of a young male tiger...when am I ever going to get beyond the scat and pugmarks and see an actual South Indian tiger, I wonder?) so we were concentrating more on the photography this time.

The property itself proved a great source of excellent subjects, and here are two photos of "Life Under Foot" as I like to call my macro photos...one, because a lot of these subjects can be found just underfoot, if we only look down and about with attention...and two, because the subjects are generally much less than a foot in their dimensions!


Here's the fruit pod of the Passion Flower plant:






I loved the delicate tracery of the lacy cage that holds the seed safe within itself.


And as we walked along, my friend Sadvi, who works as a naturalist at the Bhadra property, spied this little green beauty. And just to make things interesting, along came an ant...







We all know the story of the Ant and the Grasshopper, but of course, just to be contrary, real life has only the story of the Ant and the Preying Mantis!

The ant actually did go up to the Preying Mantis and pulled one of its legs, and the Mantis reacted by taking its legs out of harm's way...but DIDN'T prey on the ant! A very Gandhi Preying Mantis, this one...indeed, one can quite call it the PrAying Mantis, it was so non-violent!


Then it quite deliberately turned its back on us and mooned us, I think...here's the view of the behind of a Mantis!That's Amogh clicking away in the background with his really awesome macro lens...watch out for the pics on his blog.





It was a very enjoyable trip, I must say!

I had already posted the pics of the Hawk Moth caterpillar (cognoscenti should call them "cats", you know, but we ignoramuses still refer to the whole name!) when I realized that there were quite a LOT of "non-bird" pics that I wanted to post, and not wanting to burden my poor readers with a perfect avalanche of pictures, decided to do a separate post.

Given my level of knowledge about the insect kingdom, four letters are going to appear very often....they are U, N, I , and D! So let me start with an UN-ID, but exceedingly colourful bug that I found on a plant in one of the ditches which are, to budding naturalists, real treasures!





And a GRASSHOPPER (well, it looks pretty and painted to me but Karthik says it is NOT a painted grasshopper!)





( for more pictures...here you go )

First, let me start with a nice picture:

Here's a black drongo which has caught a grasshopper and is busy despatching it; on the other side, a spotted dove seems to say, "Old greedy-guts, can't you share your breakfast?"





We took our cue from the dove's question and shared a great breakfast at the end of the outing...

( click here for the beginning and the rest of it )

We finally dispersed, having had a wonderful morning; and I leave you with the image of a bird that I defy any birder to id properly...it was in the pond area of the residential layout!




We have named it the Psittacocis concretus....

Will be posting the pictures of the beautiful denizens of the insect world that we got...later!

This is the small minivet...




Whenever I hear the name, I confess that I have this irrepressible image of a very, very tiny animal doctor..."small" "mini" "vet"...

Yes, I *can* hear you groaning (all of you groan ups!)....

And to stop that, here's another picture...That's the beautiful pattern on the trunk of a Cycad, which Karthik informs me is an angiosperm, a very slow-growing plant. This one is a pretty (!) tall tree in Lalbagh...




Worthy of being abstract art...I thought of deepsan when I saw that!

Remember, I had once made this post about the wonderful camouflage of Nature, and used a photo of a bushlark? Well, here's another master of disguise that we spotted today in the Valley School area on our field trip...




There the grasshopper is to the centre left of the picture; if you look carefully, you will see that those long twiggy things in the front of the picture are actually its legs...and yet, it's SO hard to spot!

And to add to this, just when I finally get the creature in my viewfinder, HOPPP! it is off to some other place, making me look for it with slitted eyes, once again...

So when I see those wonderful photographs and watch those documentaries nowadsys, I am in danger of forgetting to watch the content as I muse about how much of effort must have gone into each frame.

I am simply amazed how birds can keep flying around and yet spot prey that is so well disguised. I think they make better naturalists than yours truly...

I very, very rarely sight snakes (I can't say "reptiles", having seen so many Agamas, lizards, geckos, crocs, and monitor lizards!) in the wild; probably because a) they disappear in a trice into the undergrowth and b) I have not been "trained" to spot them (I remember being as bad with birds, some months ago!)...but today,Karthik showed us a baby spectacled cobra....



 



Incredible sight. The little snake was quite annoyed at being spotted, and was hissing like a heated kettle. I was certainly glad that Karthik was around to ensure that it didn't disappear in a trice into the undergrowth before amoghavarsha,anushsh , KM and I had a good look at it.


 



The whole episode was over in less than a minute...but what a memorable minute it was! Other photos will follow....we saw three Grey Hornbills, and got some lovely macro shots of a plant hopper (what's that? watch this space!)....but I just couldn't wait to get to the net and share these snaps. No, I agree, they are not technically good, but the SPEED with which the baby cobra zipped into the undergrowth was just so fast, I am amazed that I got any shots at all! These pics are on the S3IS...KM was so glad that I didn't keep bugging him for the Canon EOS20D, but there were a few moments when I wanted to....for birding, the EOS with the 300mm Prime is SO good! We met Prashanth Badrinath, an expert birder, along with his friend Vijay; they had just seen an Oriental Honey Buzzard.. the only Oriental thing that WE saw, apart from the landsape of the southern Indian peninsula, of course, was the Oriental Magpie Robin, which will make its appearance in the next post.

Click on this for info about the nest(s) of the Social Spiders

That article is by S. Karthikeyan (Karthik), who conducted the Naturalists' Training Program that I attended. He was with the WWF for 17 years; and is very knowledgeable about many apsects of the natural world. He is now the Chief Naturalist of JLR

And here's the picture....




You can see two of the little critters on top of the nest (it's more like a condo/apartment building!)


Here's another view of their "developing website" in the morning light:



( Here are some of the other spiders/webs I have photographed )

Ah, I did want to collate all that "web info" (mind you, that is just from places just within the state of Karnataka!) Now I can have this for reference...