An outing with birds!

A weekend gone wrong finally turned out not so wrong, in fact turned out quite right! We had a holiday on May 1 (Labour Day). It was a Thursday. So we’d decided to take Friday off to give us a 4-day weekend. All was planned. We were to go on a camping trip to a place near Shimoga. All of us were quite excited. On Wednesday evening, hubby darling announces that trip needs to be cancelled, ‘coz he has some very urgent work on Friday. I was totally dismayed and disappointed. So were the others (4 of our friends were joining us on this). I was also quite angry though I knew it wasn’t really his fault. Well, guess things like this do happen. It’s just awful when you’ve been looking forward to something and it doesn’t work out. So on Thursday I just got wasted…went out, did a long pending three hour book browsing and buying. It felt great. Then to feel even better, we went out for dinner and generally had a good time. Friday, to the surprise of my colleagues, I landed in office!! Anyway Saturday dawned…and hubby darling suggested we go to Mysore. We’d been thinking about doing some bird photography at some lakes in Mysore. This, we’d been promising ourselves from the time we’d got ourselves a new 70 – 300 lens for our camera. So armed with all the gear, we went to Mysore. Our first jaunt was Kukkarahalli kere (kere = lake ). This place is in my opinion the best place to walk/jog. It has a wonderful path that hugs the periphery of the lake. And it has birds flocking to the lake. More so in winter during the bird migratory season. We saw hordes of painted storks. Common moorhens, egrets, common coot and herons were also spotted. I think we walked for over 2 kms. Went back to my uncle’s house for a piping hot dish of home made gobi manchurian and coffee! Relaxed, met some cousins. Discussed the Sunday plan, where we were going to do n all that and finally around 11.30 we hit the bed with the thought that we had to wake up at 5.45 AM if we needed to get to Karanji kere at 6.15 AM. But the 5.45 stretched to 6 and we reached the lake around 6.40 AM. We barely made it to be let in. They close the gates for public at 6.45 AM (re open at 8.30 AM). Started walking around the lake. The path here is right at the banks of the lake, so you’re really quite close to the birds. We saw painted stork, common moorhen, purple moorhen, intermediate egrets, juvenile night herons, purple herons, common kingfishers, white breasted kingfisher, pond herons, oriental magpie robin, spot billed pelicans, spot billed ducks, brahminy kite, ashy prinia. Saw a few more birds, but couldn’t get close enough for some pictures, so couldn’t identify them either (I must mention here that one of my friend’s helped identify a lot of birds from the pictures I sent her. Without her help, I’d still be calling the magpie robin as a bushcat!! This has also made me very interested in bird identification…)
We didn’t go to the butterfly park. By now, we’d already walked about 3 kms. We came across the bird watching group with the in house naturalist explaining all about the birds and their habitat. I’m sure it was interesting. It was good to see kids belonging to that group. Apparently unless you register for this morning bird watching session, you can’t be allowed inside! Well, I guess the security guard at the gate didn’t know that or maybe the naturalist took offence about the fact that we were taking pictures and trying to id birds without his help. We told him we’d return now and next time, join his session! So much for entering a public park/lake. On the way back to the car, we went through the aviary. This place boasts of India’s biggest walk thru’ aviary. So you enter on one side, walk inside among the bids and walk out on the other side! I’d never been to an aviary before. So this was new. And I wasn’t impressed. It looked like a glorified zoo. Though it had a very high ceiling and no cages. We saw peacocks, white peacocks, peahens, jungle fowl, turkeys, and a few other birds I couldn’t identify.
We’d got a good number of pictures by now. But I knew they were all no way close to what we would have wanted! Sigh…but it was such a refreshing experience. Different from any other outings we’ve had!
Once we were back, after a sumptuous breakfast of masala dose, we all (extended family) took off to Karigatta betta (betta = mountian/hill). Climbed up a 60 – odd steps to reach an ancient temple in red brick. Had a lovely panoramic view from there. We then left for Mahadevapura. I’d been to Mahadevapura earlier. It’s on the banks of the river Kaveri. Scenic drive as well. The place was pretty much the same as I had remembered it, except now it had more people (is that any surprise in India?). We went for a enjoyable teppa ride. It’s so different from being in an ordinary boat. In a teppa (it’s a small round boat), you’re literally skimming the surface of water…absolutely no safety factor, but that’s the fun of it I think. We then drove around a bit to find a good spot to have a picnic lunch. After ages, I was getting to have a picnic lunch under the shade of a mango orchard!
All in all, at the end of it, I was quite happy that we did something over the weekend. So what if we didn’t go camping? There are always more long weekends to come

p.s. I dreamt of birds that night!! Had seen so many at one shot that it was difficult not to think of them…hehe