Yana - a bewitching wilderness.

For the people who dont know, there is a wonderful place called Yana in the Uttara Kannada district of Karnataka. Amazing rock formations which are standing right in the middle of the evergreen forest. The forest around is so thick and dense that you can find leeches even in the hot mid summer!

    Pramod, shiv and self were there in this monsoon as a part of our western ghats trip this season. Even though I had been there 5 years ago i dint have a complete memory of how the place was exactly (I was not into photography then). So I was also as excited as Shiv and Pramod.

   We reached there by around 7 and it was slightly drizzling. After sitting inside the jeep for around 15min we decided to walk in the rains itself. It was mild and we were hoping that it will stop soon. So it did. When we reached the place we all were totally dumb struck by looking at the beauty of the place. The main rock - Bhairaveshwara Shikhara was looking so huge and majestic that none of us could talk literally for some time. The rock is huge and it is surrounded by lush green and dense forest. The monsoon mood was in the air and everything around was wet.

      Notice a tiny looking reddish spot on the right side of the tree, its a Scarlet Minivet!


  The bird life in the place was so much active that we saw Ruby Throated Bulbuls sitting very near to us. The scarlet minivets and the Yellow browed bulbuls were almost everywhere! They seem oblivious to our presence and kept themselves busy in finding some food for the morning. As we all were keen on making some landscape images all we could do was just enjoy seeing them. A Malabar Whistling Thrush was busy singing in various notes and it was giving a melodious background score for the scenary out there. Soon it came out and sat on a tree trunk for sometime and disappeared into the woods again. Then came an Emerald Dove in a sudden bullet like speed and went back into the woods in the same speed! After sometime we realised that at that time we were the only humans in the vicinity. Probably the Dove was not expecting the two legged creatures at that early time of the day and  we probably have surprised them.

  The local poojaris of the temple arrive at around 10:30 and till that time the place belongs to various birds and probably for some mammals as well, we dont know!

   As the Sun started rising slowly above the forest canopy and over the rocky formations, Pramod had a wonderful idea of the image below:
 

  
 It was around 10:30AM by the time we were little exhausted, more mentally than physically. Frankly, none of us were expecting Yana to be this much full of opportunities.... and we have not even explored the cave like path which runs around the temple!

  The place is full of opportunities for a Nature Photographer and it is currently in my must visit place for the next monsoon as well.

  Started back from the place at around 12:00PM and all I remember later was the wonderful time we had there and the way our Jeep driver drove back us to Sirsi... all the time above 80 or 100 kmph, in those curvy wooded road!!

 Cheers,
 Ash