Nagarhole Jan 26th-27th

Sudhir Shivaram & myself set off to Nagarhole on the 25th. We made a night halt at Mysore on the 25th.

Early next day we headed off to Nagarhole via Hunsur. To our surprise the visibility on the highway was around 50mts. It was a cold winter morning & fog had set in. The drive from Mysore took us an hour and a half. By the time we reached Veeranahoshalli gate it was around6:15am. Well you always hope to see big game when you enter a forest, so we headed to Karmadu road, our best chance during morning as this road is less disturbed. Not much activity on the road except for this Sambar heard which was shocked to see us amongst the mist!

We did an evening safari with fellow INWn's Sreeraj & Ganesh whom we met at Kutta. Most of the safari was good for birds. We saw good number of Forest Wag tails. On Tiger Road I stopped the jeep and was looking around when I spotted a Tree pie like bird perching on one of the branches near by. I asked Sudhir to shoot since it was sitting on an open branch. Suddenly I realised it was not a Tree Pie & a Malabar Trogon which has been rarely sighted in Nagarhole. In fact there were a pair of them.We made some decent images of the bird & headed back to Kutta. Not much luck with the cats though. This rare sighting made our trip, I would put it much rare than a Tiger.

The next day we did the main roads & not much sighting happened exept for this Tusker.