Trip to ‘KN Shola’ Forest Trails (aka ‘KN Shola’) beckoned us again!
Unfortunately, KN was traveling in Uttaranchal and couldn’t join us for this trip. Giri Cavale, as usual, performed his duties as responsible camp manager in addition to making some amazing chloropsis images! Sudhir Shivram joined us too and Vijay Cavale paid a surprise visit on Sunday making it a mini-INP gig!
The weather was great (cool breeze, steady drizzle) for birding though not great for any serious photography. Bird activity was frenetic with several birds either nesting or in the equally active post-nesting phase. Please go through the images of the birds – the only new image was the elusive Thick-billed Flowerpecker photographed in the Singapore Cherry trees. The undoubted highlight of the trip was the sighting of a pack of dholes from Doddibetta peak trying to single out a Gaur calf. Giri spotted this by chance when he was zooming in on a record shot of a pack of distant Gaur on my camera LCD screen.
He mistook the red animals he saw on the screen as a couple of Barking Deer but later turned out to be a pack of dholes on a hunt! Sudhir was also with us on the peak with his 500mm bazooka and photographed the entire sequence of events. Please read Sudhir’s graphic account of the dhole episode on www.thejunglelook.com.
Cheers, –r@mki Bangalore | June 2006