Heavy Pet-ing!! Puppies !!!

Few months back i was switching around television channels, just stopped by at News9 where in show was covering the dogs sizzling the ramp. It was not ordinary ramp show, ramp was sizzled not only by foreign breeds but also the desi dogs which included few stray dogs, yes the stray dogs. I said ok. and changed the channel by then.

But few days back we, my family were opportune!! something happened where i had recollected the above show tv show. It's the cute little puppies. There they are! Aren't they cute?

But guess what, these cute little puppies were hardly 7 days old & they were facing toughest days of their life. Toughest because these little 5 puppies had lost their mother. Mother of these puppies gave birth to these just in front of our house in bushes at HSR layout.
It was wonderful seeing these pretty adorable little puppies with their mother. But just within 2~3 days after giving birth the mother seemed not quite keeping good. It had gone crazy, with excess salivation roaming around like real crazy. probably that was rabies. Just the very next of these symptoms it had it's last breath leaving behind five little cute adorable puppies which were hardly 4-5 days old.

Among these one was really either beautiful or handsome (I am not sure about gender :P) was adopted by the nearby house construction guards. But remaining four still struggling, we bought them to our home, they were so tiny. The most excited to welcome them in our home was my nephew Rishit and least excited is my wife Vani, she is scared of dogs. We had them with us for few days, It was really fun having and playing with them in home along side really tough keeping them clean and feeding them.

We miss them. All n all  it was really fun filled few days with these little puppies, and later we had to hand over them to one of NGO's. They charge some amount to take care of stray dogs.
Here are few links if you find such situation in future.

Karuna Animal welfare, It's dogs life, Bangalore animal NGO's

Happy pet-ing!!

Kabini Wild walk/birding (Day2)

To continue with second day of Kabini,

Sunday morning. Just imagine coming to senses early in morning. But i was determined for it on previous night itself. I was the last to get up from the bed, It was 5.50 in the morning, Every one aggroup were up & getting ready. I managed to catch up with the timings somehow, It was safari time again, by 6.20 we were all in safari  jeep, &  not the alone this time, 2 young beautiful outlander ladies with us ;). All of us were highly optimistic to sight a leopard this time. But we were not lucky enough, although some other jeeps (JLR safaris)  sighted a leopard same day ;). Some more sightings from safari.

Male Deer

Indian Roller

Black rumped flameback woodpecker

Female Blacktail Deer.

Changeable Hawk-eagle.

Indian Bison or Gaur. Looks like he has hurt himself.

Baby Elephant. 

Crested Serpent Eagle.

Kabini Wild walk/birding (Noon of Day1)

Continuing with previous post,
As i said, we were badly tired & drowsy at the same time, we reached Bison. Bison owned by very interesting person(Shaaz), especially his accent(more of non-Indian). And also just amazing wild stories of cats he sighted at Kabini.
We just relaxed a bit, As we saw and heard from Shaaz, two spotted owlet home in near by tree.

Spotted Owlet.
Owlet was pretty daring and posing for photoshoot. It was sarrounded by 6 photographers ;) It not even bothered for camera flashes. Bravo !!
Then we headed to dining, had nice lunch. By then, what we were frightened of from previous day was about to happen, Yes it started drizzling, the clouds had victory over sun "the source of light". Though our enthusiasm for safari was still intact. We made sure our camera gears does not get hurt  by rain falls and headed to safari.
On the way to safari i realized, how fstop 5.6 may tun disastorus in case of low lights. Low source of light, rain, higher fstop lens, lens without IS, halnd held shots, guess what, I was facing all of them, it was getting extremely difficult to shoot with all them as the day was progressing towords dark. I literally missed some nice shots of elephant action :(. Nevertheless i was not very disappointed kind a jovial and safari was good deal.
Some of sightings and what i could capture among.

Care for each other ;)

":P". Even monkeys show tongue

Veggies ;).

Changeable hawk eagle.

Tracks inside jungle.

Indian Blue peacock.



Sundown at Kabini.

Burning sky, Taken after sundown.

After this sundown we were also completely down, some talks at bonfire about days shoot & dinner, we are done for the day. I am already sleeping by now ;).

Kabini Wild walk/birding (Morning session of Day1)

Shutterbugs in my office been planning for some trip lately where we can use the shutter in fruitful way. Decided we will head to shimmoga to visit sakkare bailu and the other bird sanctuary. Plan to shimmoga got called off for some reason, and i do not regret for that. We decided go hit kabini, thanks to Arun who already visited that place just 2 weeks before. We made sure that we reach kabini early morning, any of among had hardly slept previous day night.

Keeping our eyes open was just hard, with drowsy state, we reached sarai (a coffee day group resort). Sarai is definitely a resort with classy ambiance & amenities  and is best place for early morning photography. All drowsily disappeared just looking at many birds flying by sides in trees, bushes. continued capturing birds for couple of hours, we realized we were hungry, headed to dining, Sarai serves buffet break fast and is just out of world though is little costly. You never see to cost when it comes to hunger ;)

I had rented a 400mm 5.6 prime lens. Till now i was happy with the shots by this lens as i was able to reach the tiny birds with sharpness. Below are some photographs caught at Sarai premises.

White Browed Bulbul.

Spotted Dove (Streptopelia chinensis)

Yellow wagtail Female catching dragon fly.
 
Spot billed ducks. I felt they are very shy.

White Ibis also called as Black Headed Ibis.

Balck Headed Ibis in flight.

Little Egret in flight.

Red Whiskered Bulbul.

Purple rumped Sun Bird Male.

 Male House Sparrow.

Female House Sparrow.

Another shot of red wishkered bulbul.

Yellow wagtail Male. (Male and Female resemble each other very much).

Here we end with Sarai. After having break fast we headed to waterwoods. Water woods is a place on banks of kabini river, mostly is used for domestic cattle feeding, washing clothes. Sun was right above our head, we could sight many birds here as well, some of below which i could catch them. 

Black Headed Gull.

Indian River tern. More shots of river tern with different angles and in flight.

Green Bee eater.

We were done with water woods. at the same time badly needed a place to stretch ourselves.  We headed to Bison resort. I end this writeup with first half of day. Lets continue the real wild walk (Safari) with next part ;)

Day out to Muthathi

Quite weird name to hear, isn't it? But the place isn't really weird !!
Is an ancient forest which has connection with Ramayana. When Sita Devi was taking bath at this place, her nose studd falls into the kaveri river. Lord Hanuman finds the studd and returns to Sita maatha. Hanuman gets the name Muthetharaya as a consequence and there is a small temple for Anjaneya at this place. And i  wonder how name of this place is might have derived.

First pit stop, between Sathanur and Muthathi. 

Believe me it was no mans land ;)

Marh 19th is the day that I with some of friends visited this place. Beginning with some geographic point of view of this place, is pretty close to Bangalore. Muthathi is a village on banks of kabini river, a nice calm, windy cool place. It is 90 km's drive from outskirts of Bangalore, drive to Kanakapura road, till you cross Banashankari, till end of METRO stores drive is miserable as due to Metro rail work in progress. From then the drive would be pretty decent. Drive of 70 kms on kanakapura road will take to Sathanur. and left from there, 18 kms of drive, and we reach muthathi. Drive between sathanur and muthathi is just amazing. A thick forest offers nice jungle feeling, birds singing. Is like a no mans land. Hardly encounter of any other vehicle till reach to muthathi. But if it is core summer you will definately feel the ablaze of wind, especially for us as we drove to muthathi by bikes ;)

Once reach muthathi, head to boating place. where local villagers offer coracle ride and charge 40 per head. This ride would take you to other end of the river. Nice palce to spend some time in water swimming. and the best part, place is not too crowded.

There is no accomodation available in muthathi, other than Bheemeshwari Fishing camp run by Jungle lodges & resorts and it needs prior reservation at least on weekends. And also kaveri running here has saveral whirlpools, and heard many have lost their lives here. Check this link as precautionary.   

Muthathi is great bird watching place, but we could not sight many many. we sighted wagtail, black kites & many of monkeys. By the time we reached the place was pretty late in noon, possible reason that we could not sight many birds.

Well it was the same day, much hyped super moon. how can i forget shooting moon. Below is my supermoon shot.