Forest Trails Bannerghatta, July 2004

Overnight trip with Shankar & Ritu. INP member Krishna Narain (KN) owns and runs this delightful camp. It’s a superb sprawling patch (~60 acres) of forested hills about 20kms from Bangalore. It borders the Bannerghatta National Park. It is, to put it mildly, a naturalists’ delight. Elephants, sloth bears and leopards exist in and around Forest Trails.

This is probably the only place in Bangalore where Yellow Throated Bulbuls are regularly seen and probably breed. I managed to see and photograph a flock last winter. Nightjars are very common in and near Forest Trails and a night drive should definitely produce a few. I have attached some nightjar images in the gallery. This July, I photographed a family of Paradise Flycathers – proof that they breed here. The list of birds and experiences in Forest Trails are endless…

I have visted Forest Trails twice – once during Christmas 2004 and once in July 2005. This trip report if from the July 2005 trip.

Good friend, colleague & partner Shankar and his wife Ritu joined us for this weekend trip. Unfortunately, they had to leave their golden retriever Lobsang at home because of the panther population at Bannerghatta!

Cheers,

–r@mki