Birds and Butterflies in Anshi- Dandeli Tiger Reserve:

Birds and Butterflies in Anshi- Dandeli Tiger Reserve:

I dedicate all the photographs on this blog post to all the naturalists of “The Old Magazine House”, where we had stayed. The naturalists, in fact the entire staff of “The Old Magazine House” is so eager to help people explore the full treasures of the Jungle.  This gesture gets reflected   even in the food prepared by the master chef Vasu. The food is made of not only fresh vegetables but also with fresh spices.  The Dal and the Rice are fried using fresh Bay leaves (Tej Patta) and yields a terrific flavor to the food.

The food is absolutely right mix of spices and is as homely and light as it gets, so that while roaming in jungles never makes one overly thirsty.

If one comes to Dandeli Anshi reserve in monsoons with huge expectations of Animal sightings then I must say that a huge disappointment awaits him. This is true not only for this reserve but for all the reserves of Western Ghats. The jungles are so very dense that one cannot see anything beyond 10 meters ahead.

Although the monsoons brings in a lot of opportunity to observe birds and butterflies as this marks the nesting season for these species.

The time tested ground rule of keeping your eyes open near water bodies while doing bird watching proved out to be right again as we saw birds like White Breasted Hen, a pair of White Wagtail, Little Cormorant, Eastern Skylark, A nesting pair of Indian Robin, Green Bee eater, White breasted Kingfisher and many more birds around water body

Little Cormorant

 A White Breasted Water Hen with two chickens in Crocodile territory

 A Pair of White Wagtails

 A Bramhiny Kite

 An Indian Robin Couple

Birds in the Trees:

One point that I would like to make that the one of the points that go unnoticed staying at places in midst of nature that one requires no morning alarms, the chirping of the birds in the nearby trees makes up a perfect alarm sound which no alarm clock ring tone can beat. 

Some of the birds which are worth mentioning that we spotted in the trees and bushes were Black Drongo, Black headed Cukoo Shrike, A pair of Heart spotted Woodpecker, Malabar Pied Hornbill, Common Golden Backed Woodpecker, Malabar Grey Hornbill and Orange headed Thrush. 

Black headed Cukoo Shrike

Heart spotted Woodpecker 

Orange headed Thrush

A Male Malabar Pied Hornbill

A Female Malabar Pied Hornbill

If this was not enough we were blessed  sightings with some of the butterflies  so big that one can get confused with them being birds. Colourations so perfect and stylish that will give any fashion designer run for there money and for sure will never ever run out of fashion. 

 A Bird Winged Butterfly

 A Pair of Butterflies