Leonids 09, some by products!

Even though the Leonids plan went into vein, my trip to Kodachadri and Madodi proved quite useful.

On the night I left Bangalore, Adithya called had called me just to say that its raining like cats and dogs! But when I landed there early morning and looked up, the stars and the clean sky welcomed me! I was delighted....OK, as the below tells...it promptly turned cloudy every morning once the Sun came up! :)

Adithya's place (Simha Farms) is a wonderful place if you want to photograpgh some of the Western Ghats species. Malabar Grey Hornbils, Racquet Tailed Drongos, Small Sunbirds, Hill Mynas, Malabar Parakeets and what not! This time it was the hornbils and the yellow browed bulbuls which were in plenty. Just before the Sun rise morning sky turns very much colorful and Adithya told me that its almost everyday scene here! Lucky him!

 Several of my photo sessions and birding walks turned quite fruitful either in terms of photography or in birding. We got to get a glimpse of the elusive and colorful Malabar Trogon. It rained that afternoon as well. We had plans of making some long exposure images on the nights of 16th. Thanks to the clouds which made sure that we go to sleep at the right time by not allowing to photograph anything.

Just before starting to Kodachadri we got to photograph Hump Nosed Pit Wiper, a poisonous snake found in the jungles of Southern India! Its quite small in lenth and quite inactive during the day.

 Our fate of what happened during the D-Day of Leonids was already told by me earlier. But even if we dint get many of the planned things, we did get some wonderful play of clouds and early morning Sun. I had made a time lapse of few sec length which I will share sometime later. The same clouds which had ruined the show that night, now gave some  spectacular show with the Sun above and the forest below. Some parts of the forest was looking like the Cloud Forest of Mexico! The ambiance was very much refreshing. It was healing the deep wounds a bit, caused last night by the same clouds!

We packed our stuffs at around 8 and started our journey back. Kestrel was there to say Good Morning, but we were looking for his cousin- Amur Falcon which was found there last December! But all our search dint yield any fruitful results.

 We were back by 11.00, with mixed feelings of some distressed failure and some good scenic moments.   

UPDATE:

I am leaving to Kaziranga (Assam) tomorrow. I will be spending 4 and a half days at Kazi and two days at Nameri. Hoping for some good time.

Cheers,
Ash