Friday, July 13, 2012

KokkareBelluru, Mandya District, Bangalore

We left Bangalore early​ in the morning to Visit one of our friends "Beegara Oota" which was in a village near Mandya. We were waiting for our friend Sanket who had come all the way from Mumbai just for this.

Vinay, Bindu and Sanket picked me up at my house in the morning. Vinay as usual was on the driver seat in his Alto. We reached there by about 11.30AM. Said "HI" to our friend had our Lunch by 2PM. The meal had a non-veg dishes except for rasam. Me and Vinay are veggies hence had a very light meal:-) We decided to try the McDonald on the mysore highway while returning.

After the dinner we went for a small walk near a temple which was closeby. As usual I took my SLR hoping to catch any birds around the area. We were talking about Asian koels and Mynas, all of a sudden I observed a Huge bird flying to the near by tree and settling on it. I switched on my SLR even Sanket had his digicam. When we peeked at the tree I could just see its tail which was grey and huge. It was "Grey Hornbill". I was thrilled to see the bird. It was my first spotting.

This guy kept jumping from one tree to another but did give me couple of good shots. Me and my friends were very happy to have photographed this guy. It was a first sighting in the wild for everyone. After Hornbill tried our hands at photographin Crow:-), Myna and Koel.

After watching all these birds we started thinking if we can go to "Kokkare Belluru" on the way back to Bangalore. We had seen a signboard of this place on the Mysore highway. No one had any objection to the idea. So we started to drive towards the kokkare belluru.

On the way to Kokkare Belluru we stopped at a very large lake which had lot of Egrets in their breeding plumage, Black Headed Ibis, Black Ibis, Woolly Necked Stork, White Throated Kingfisher, Grey Herons and Pond herons. Me and Sanket started clicking away. Vinay did end up taking one photograph with his car. Close by I spotted Collared Dove and explained to my friends why it is called like that showing the distinct Black mark on the dove's neck.

After a brief pitstop we started driving towards the Koakkre Belluru. On reaching the place we saw couple of Juvenile Painted storks which were injured. On enquiring the locals they said they take care of these injured birds. They showed us an enclosure which had injured storks and an injured Spot Billed Pelican.

We saw lot of Painted storks both adults and Juveniles. Even this was my first sighting of Painted storks. I also found a Balck Ibis which was very co-operating while taking photographs. Clicked some some good photographs of Black Kite, Brahminy Kite, Storks, Ibis and Sparrows.

Overall it was worth a visit. Locals told us to come back in Nov-Dec time frame which is the actual season for these winter arrivals. Should plan to visit this place again during this winter.

Google Maps Co-Ordinates for the location : 12.542499,77.092438

List of birds found during the trip :

1. Asian Koel(Male and female)
2. Mynah
3. Indian Robin
4. Grey Hornbill
5. Black Ibis
6. Black headed Ibis
7. Egrets
8. Grey Heron
9. Pond Heron
10. White Throated Kingfisher
11. Spotted Dove
12. Collared Dove
13. Painted Storks
14. Spot Billed Pelican
15. Black Kite
16. Brahminy Kite
17. House Sparrow
18. Wooly Necked Stork

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