Monday, October 1, 2007

Nandi Hills


Nandi Hills

Dr. Kumar Ghorpade, my guide for a week of birding around Bangalore, picked me up after a short breakfast of spicy foods and fresh yogurt and coffee. His driver had a brand new car- an Indian Tata, that he was clearly proud of. Our goal was the Nandi Hills, north of the city by 60 km. The hills are at 13.4019 N; 77.7239 E - and have an Elevation of 928 meters. The hill has extensive alien planting by the British such as eucalyptus and coffee. The forest canopy collects moisture from the fog that shrouds the top each morning and keeps the area moist.

We started our walk mid-way up the hill in order to wait out the fog.

Some sightings:

Pariah dogs
Bonnet Macaque Macaca radiata





White-cheeked barbet
Green bee eater
Rose-ringed parakeet
Alpine swift
Eurasian blackbird
Sunbird sp.
Red-whiskered bulbul
Spotted dove
Black Kite
Rock pigeon
Jungle crow
House crow

5 comments:

Anna McDermott said...

jealous, jealous, jealous!

It all sounds like such fun! More posts please!

Larry Parnass said...

Congratulations to Steve for the postings to date. We here at the Gazette will be running features Wednesday through Friday encouraging readers to visit Steve's blog -- and alerting them to the fact that Saturday's column will be filed from India.

Nate said...

Great Macaque picture. How close were you?

The Pariah dogs sound like they're from Riddley Walker. Don't get dog et.

Nate said...

It is puzzling that the comment system refuses to capitalize proper nouns...

Steve Sauter said...

One can walk right up to the monkeys but better not to do it- they have sharp teeth and are psychotic.