Wonder Bird in Wonderland...

The Idea!!

The day I heard my friend Honne suggesting me a trip to “Tattekad” for birding, I was really skeptical. Having been around in Kerala for many treks and trips, I had never heard of the place name.. EVER!!!...

But I knew he knows all the birding destinations at the back of his hand. Initially, like any other planned trips which goes un-implemented, I thought this one as well will be just a discussion and not anything else at all. But to my wonder, when my Jim Corbett and Ranathambore plans went that way, desperate were we to visit some place during the long weekend coming ahead.

So the plan got frozen, with some known and unknown people and then after a few quits and join-ins, the day arrived when we booked accommodation and travel to the place.

Expecting a huge traffic outgoing from Bengaluru, we left Bengaluru really late, as all our 5-day-a-week-job fellows will definitely be rushing to get the hell out of Bengaluru with a long weekend of Dussehra Holidays ahead. It’s the same case with us too. It’s as though it is a crime to be seen in Bengaluru if it is a long weekend and you have no plans!!!! Really you don’t want that pitying look on others (those who succeeded to get out) face when you have spent a long weekend at home :P

Traffic was heavy and by the time we exited Bengaluru city limits it was already about 1am. The actual inconvenience started while waiting to get the inter-state permit from KA to TN. There was approximately about 1 hours wait time at this checkpost. Frustrated we waited to pay the toll only to realize we had hardly covered a hundred kms where in the destination is 600kms away!!

Thattaikad:

Ceylone Frogmouth 

To speak about “Tattekad”, “Thattekad Bird Sanctuary”, is located in Kerala. Salim Ali, one of the best known ornithologist described this sanctuary as the richest bird habitat on peninsular India. The Thattekkad Bird Sanctuary has a rich and varied birdlife. Several species of birds, both forest birds as well as the water birds, visit the sanctuaries.

The "Long weekend SAGA":

As we left the toll booth and drove, it was about 3 am and we were not even halfway through. To our surprise, after a drive of about another 4 hours drive, we had to wait for another 45 minutes to get the Kerala Permit. But we found another gang at the site who drove from Bangalore to Munnar and had a bit of a company waiting for the toll to be paid.

The weather started getting more humid welcoming us to Gods own country. It was sunny and we were hoping it should not rain. We stopped for breakfast at a posh-looking, expensive restaurant serving awful food. Dosa, omelette and even tea was just hard to consume. We cursed and left. The journey seemed too long but we managed. We lost our way at one point – thanks to Vinai - our Garfield’s cousin cum Navigator and drove a good extra 15kms. Nothing too bad, we saw Crested Serpent Eagle perched low and beautiful. That was a good sign. J

We reached “Tattekad” to our surprise, not many people around knew this place, not even the localites. Also, we were pronouncing the place name wrong. Pronounced Thattaikad, we were only confusing people asking for “Tattekad”. Mind you every vowel makes a difference in native tongue J

Hungry and tired we took help from a forest guide who tried to navigate us but failed. Apparently none of us knew Malayalam. Driver pretended to be speaking Malayalam in front of us, but he failed to communicate with the localites with “his” version of the language :D. Thus after a lot of struggle we reached the homestay. This place is called the “Jungle Bird” homestay. It is inside the forest itself. So you will enter a kind of checkpost and go inside. Girish the caretaker is a very friendly man. So is his mother. She is a very active woman given her age. I noticed one thing. Girish is the only man in that house! He has his mother, grandmother, two girl children and a wife J No other man in that family.

"Jungle Bird Homestay" and the Frogmouth Hunt:

Guest house looked very clean and could accommodate about 30 people max. Approx 1300 per head including food and stay seemed reasonable. We were to reach there by 10am but due to all the delays we reached at 5PM!! We were very hungry and could eat a horse lest the tasty and hot food served. The food was very simple but very tasty.

We had only few house as it was getting darker. So post lunch (at 5pm !)  We walked inside the first trail which was right outside the homestay. We spotted a tree pie, common kingfisher, Rufus kingfisher, white bellied kingfisher  and few cormorants, Little Indian grebes(is what I thought it was).

We had our much needed chai at the small point and wanted lemon to be squeezed into the black tea. The woman refused and enacted to us that the glass would burst if lemon is squeezed into the hot tea. It was very funny but we acted very decent without embarrassing her by bursting out into laughter. We tasted and wasted some cookies we tried there and left to the homestay.

Next morning was the much awaited wonder bird trail trek. The very famous Srilankan / Ceylone frogmouth hunt started. We were divided into two batches Girish leading one and his mother leading another. We 6 photographers (Poornima, Honne, Vinai, Sudhi and I, accompanied by a new friend Sudhir ) left in two vehicles. A calm and high perched Dollar bird welcomed us on our way. An Indian Roller flew from a very shallow channel of water. A flying roller is a real treat to eyes! Such wonderful colors it has!!

From a certain point we started our trek into the trails. Just as we entered, we saw a flying lizard, jumping from one branch of the tree to the other. Swift and perfectly camouflaged with the tree it was the best example of nature’s ambush!

Further walking ahead we saw a little party of a lot of Orange Mini Vets and a few sunbirds. We sat quietly waiting for the beautiful tiny one to come pick nector from the flower. And there it was! Oh such magnificent bright color of throat of a Purple throated sunbird. She must have been one of the best creations of nature! So quick and with the sunlight directly falling over it, she shone and shone unaware of ugly humans surrounding her.

We also saw a few orioles perched too high on the trees and a raptor whose ID could not find as he was flying too high. We walked further ahead into the woods to the see the very “famous” Ceylone Frogmouth / Srilankan Frogmouth. Inside a bush about 4 ft high, camouflaged with the dry leaves of the canopy the bushes had made. Every time mother-nature has wonders for us. I could not believe my eyes to see a couple Frogmouth looking away from each other, with their yellow eyes bright and shining in the sunlight. They were not at all disturbed by our presence. Girish made sure the people passing by did not stop by looking at a group of mad photographers wearing camo and carrying expensive gears. So every time the villagers passed by we were looking at the sky like dumb-fools and would say “its gone – its gone” It was really funny doing this. And once Girish said there is a Giant Red squirrel just to distract people’s attention and apparently it came there just that moment as if it heard us! In about another 200m distance there was another Ceylone Frogmouth couple at about 7ft high above the ground on a tree branch. Just like the previous couple this duo also looked un-interested in humans and continued to look at infinity like an intellectual.

We had good look at these and went back to our guesthouse for lunch. Post lunch, the plan was to go out into the Salim Ali trail again as the previous day. But the Rain God did not seem to have liked the idea, hence he poured and poured and reminded us we were in Gods own country J

We dropped all the plans and sat playing Uno – my best pass time. Hot chai was served and once the rain stopped, some small insects started raising from the soil. A couple Raquet tailed drongos started their dance to catch the flies. It was a beautiful sight. A langur was sitting for a long time watching us.

There was ample time so went out again for a small round in car to visit the town. It’s a pretty well developed town with huge bakers and supermarkets. We explored the bakery too and returned to the homestay. 

The "Ad-Hoc" Plan:

Our plan was to drive to Athirapally then to Valparai and then to Pollachi. The great brain – yes ME , calculated time taken according to distan and not according to terrain!! It was 60km drive uphill.. I calculated 2 hours for  60 kms and 3 hours for 80km and so on.. But there was a catch ! It was totally uphill and with HP Curves!! And hence, although we bid goodbyes to Girish and his all-woman family post breakfast and left to Athirapally at 8am suddenly plans changed to meet a bird feeder where we could click photographs of birds fed. So we stopped by and unloaded our gears to see the birds being fed. A lot of grey Malabar hornbills, white cheeked barbets, black rumped –flameback woodpecker,

tree-pies, greater-hill-mynah, warblers came and posed for us. We took as many pics. Not even one pied-hornbill seen though! Then came a flock of parakeets and allowed us to capture them.

We left the place by 9.30 to Athirapally. The drive was very nice with beautiful picturesque scenary around. It took real long to reach the fall and was very very crowded. We did not want to lose the day-light so we did not spend much time there. Fall is very huge and beautiful. Must see, but most crowded.

We left to Valparai from there.

Again my route time calculation did not work! According to previous plan we had to reach Valparai and 1pm and Pollachi at 4PM!. Impossible it was! With the kind of terrain, we entered Valparai by 6pm and it was getting dark. At the check-post, forest guide suggested not to drive to Pollachi as the gates will be closed.

I had booked accommodation at Pollachi – topslip forest guesthouse and there was no-way we could make it. I had language problem. We wanted to go for safari anyhow, hence I asked our Tamil-speaking friend Vinai to ask them for suggestion. Since we could not go there, that man was obviously irate and probably was just waiting us to call. Vinai got the complete heat as he started blasting him over the phone. The expression on Vinai’s face was priceless. Then since it was dark and there was no power at Valparai, we thought of taking accommodation there itself. Initially they said all accommodation was taken. After Vinais influence and tamil speaking skills, we managed to get a homestay. They showed us a very nice room for Rs 2800 and another almost exactly as big as the other one for Rs 1700!! After burning a lot of currency on feeding birds etc, we obviously went for the 1700 One J

We planned to have dinner at the room itself and got some eatables there.

Honne was on toes to see the lion tailed macaque. The moment we took accommodation he made Vinai check is Lion tailed macaques come there. The localites must have taken us for crazy to have come all the way to see a monkey which troubles them day in and out and are not of that interest.

Next morning we woke up to see the Lion tailed macaques were right on top of neighbors building. But photos with building as background did not seem that good. Hence, we went into some estate. Other than a Malabar whistling thrush, we did not see anything. Way back there were a lot of Lion tailed macaques all around. We spread here and there to shoot. Alas! Crowd gathered looking at us, as we are shooting the almost endangered species. One car, then a tempo, then another attracted forest guides and they had to ask us to move as well. Luckily Honne and Vinai were on the other street and could get some real nice clicks.

We went around a lot of times, but the guides were strict not allowing us to take pics again. Really proud of their work. We left to Pollachi as it was in our iterinary and crossing fingers to reach before 4pm.We entered Anaimalai forest gates and stopped for a very tasty lunch at around 4pm.

Paradise of Birds:

 

Post lunch some forest guides looking at our camo, pointed us to go to the view point. Some localites thought we were students studying ecology. Honne was explaining them that we were hobby photographers and I wonder what they would have thought about us J

Though we went there for viewpoint, out view shifted to a small canopy alongside. We went to see “some” bird but HEY!! That was a shopping mall of a lot of varieties of birds. Since we were quiet, it initially began with whispers of “hey 11 o’clock, hey 1 o’clock, hey 3 o’clock”  , at certain point of time, it was a flood of so many kinds of bids. Tree-pie, Oriole, Orange-mini vet, white bellied drongo, black rumped –flameback woodpecker, bee eaters, Swallows and I don’t know if there were more. We spent a good 2 hours and also saw a Lion Tailed Macaque sitting far. Sudhi and Vinai tried all gymnastic methods to capture the macaque and he seemed to have sensed us from so far, that he was turning towards us every-time to check if we left.

We wanted to go for a safari but it was already post 4pm, hence could not go for the safari at topslip.Content already with these sightings, we left to Bangalore.

It was pouring hell on the way to Bengaluru and all the traffic towards Bengaluru blocked several roads. We took a bypass to break for dinner and continue. It was about 11pm when we reached Bengaluru.

It was a very fruitful (Birdful!) Birding trip to the very famous Salim Ali Bird Santuary J

This definitely is one of my most memorable trips.

I wish we could spend another day at Topslip, but our duty was also beckoning us.

We sure will visit Topslip again for the things we could not do…