Pozu's Turns Two !!!

With kids around, time just flies by. I still can't forget the first time I held baby in the operation theater and yesterday she's already turned two!!!



Like we did on her first b'day, even this time we had a small house party with some good old friends joining us for the evening. The kids had a lot of fun together and Pozu enjoyed herself thoroughly.

Here's a picture of Pozu taking a stab at Tinky Winky and Po. (For all those who don't have kids yet, they're Teletubbies characters. And for all those who have kids already, I can tell you that this cake was an instant hit with all small ones!)


Picture taken by: Ari-Maasi :)

Giant Wood Spider

The Kabini jungle was abundant with the wood spider creations this time. The morning rays of the sun make the web look really glamorous.

The female is actually the one that is a giant size (3 inches or more) while the males are tiny at about 1/10th her size. Their webs are quite big in size and can vary between 1-2 meters in diameter, spun between trees.

Tech Specs:

Canon 1D Mark IV + Canon 600mm F4 IS
Shot handheld at 600mm, 1/500s, F4 and ISO 800

The model Mongoose!

Given that the two safaris hadn't given me enough photo opportunities, I decided to wait back and do one more ride. This Ruddy Mongoose was basking in the evening sun on a fallen tree stump as we entered the jungle.

Usually these are very shy and would retract into the bushes immediately, however this one was extremely camera friendly and it watched us inquisitively while we kept clicking away. The mongoose are usually known for their ability to fight the cobra and emerge victorious, but their diet includes other rodents and lizards too.

Tech Specs:
Canon 1D Mark IV + Canon 600mm F4 IS
Shot at 600mm, 1/320s, F4 and ISO 400

The Pelicans of Kokkare Bellur

This weekend was a solo trip to Kabini, and on the way was a detour to a small village known as Kokkare Bellur. This is a 13km deviation from Maddur and the roads were great until the last 5kms. As you start closing in to your destination, you could see quite a few Pelicans hovering up in the sky.

I was expecting an organized conservation effort like Ranganathittu, but it was amazing to see that the village is no less than a sanctuary in itself. When I reached the place, I asked one of elderly person on which way to the bird sanctuary and he pointed me to two different directions and mumbled off something in Kannada. I couldn't understand what he said, but I could make out that he was trying to tell me that the birds are everywhere, you can just walk around the village.

Apparently the villagers are very appreciative of the fact that the large winter migrants such as the Painted Storks and Spot-Billed Pelicans nest in large colonies on trees in their village. The forest department has some kind of arrangement to compensate the villagers for every tree where the birds are nesting. This is since the land below the tree and any produce from that tree has to be foregone.

I didn't see too many Painted Storks at this time, but there were quite a few Pelicans on trees by the road side. So I decided to walk around there and watch the birds do their daily chores.

Here's a close up shot of a large Pelican on the tree:

Tech Specs:

Canon 1D Mark IV + Canon 600mm F4 with 1.4x TC
Shot at 840mm, 1/5000s, F8, ISO 800

Chased by a Tusker!

2010 was a year when we had elephants charging at us almost every time we were inside the Bandipur jungle. This was one of those times when we had this tusker not liking our company and trying to drive us away.

We've had misses and near misses that year, Gozu got a scare of her life when we were almost stuck in the middle of a herd with a huge female elephant chasing us from behind. These gentle giants have their own mood swings and while sometimes they'll allow you to close in to the herd while they're happily grazing, at other times they'll just want you to leave immediately. Most common charging incidents happen when there's a baby around or there is a lone male elephant, the latter being the more dangerous encounter to have.

Whatever be the situation, its always a treat to watch them around. Sometimes you can actually notice their emotional patterns which are seemingly like ours!

Tech Specs:
Canon 40D + Canon 70-200 F4 L IS
Shot at 78mm, 1/160s, F4 and ISO 250

Metallica Metallica !!!

It was like good old days coming back again! It's been a while since I've been to any rock concert but this wasn't an opportunity I could have missed. The band that I've listened to since school days had to be experienced live in action.

After the Delhi incident, people were uncertain how things would turn out at Bangalore but I was sure that the crowd here would be well behaved and it indeed was. The show was well managed, the crowd was loud but not unruly, the set list was superb!

Metallica...I was there when you rocked Bangalore!


Image taken from: www.metallica.com

Gowri - The proud mother of Bandipur

My brother was in Bangalore last week to deliver all the Diwali goodies - Mum's special preparation of sweets. His plans weren't fixed early enough to get some bookings done for the weekend. I kept checking the JLR site almost every day and surprisingly a room showed available at Bandipur, perhaps because of some cancellation. So off we went to the jungle on Saturday, his first ever experience in the wild.

Almost an hour into the safari, there were the usual suspects that showed up as always barring the elephants who remained elusive in this trip. Then we hear some alarm calls and anxiety starts building up. One of the jeeps had gotten a glimpse of a tigress walking on the trail inside the thicket and were waiting on the other side of the road for her to cross. So we joined them too and parked the car by the road maintaining perfect silence. The alarm calls grew closer and now we could even hear some hustle bustle in the thicket on our right.

We patiently waited there with hopes of seeing the stripes, and she obliged! Out came a tigress known by the name "Gowri" and crossed the road in front of our jeep. She's one of the two females who've been raising a litter in the tourism zone at Bandipur. She's got 4 cubs who would be soon be turning 18 months and will be ready for claiming their own territory. Hopefully, they'll all be successful hunters too and help in adding a few more to their clan.

The sighting was less than a minute, but it made my day! Here's a shot that I could get with some reasonable eye contact with her.

Tech Specs:
Canon 7D + Canon 70-200 F4 L IS
Shot at 200mm, 1/250s, F4 and ISO 800

Golden Temple @ Kushalnagar

Surprisingly enough, in so many years of staying in Bangalore, we had never been to Coorg before. Last week was my first visit to Coorg and the Tibetan settlement at Kushalnagar was on the list of things to do.

The visit to the Namdroling monastery was a superb experience overall and it's the place you'd like to visit if Ladakh is too far for you. Having missed the trip to the mountains this year, the trip to Bylakuppe made up for atleast a fraction of the Ladakh experience.

The monastery has a huge golden Buddha statue, with Padmasambhava and Amitayus on either sides. The gold coated statues with the light falling through the ceiling quickly gets you to a calm and you could easily sit there for hours and keep staring at nothing.

Tech Specs:
Canon 7D + Canon 24-105 F4 L IS
Shot at 24mm, 1/400s, F4 and ISO 640