Froging in Coorg

Just back from an amazing 2 days in the gorgeous Honey Valley near Coorg, Karnataka as part of a Lost Amphibians of India expedition to explore the areas amphibian diversity in late Monsoon.

 

 

The event was led by none other than the world famous Frog man of India - Dr S D Biju. In just over two days he gave us a couple of extremely captivating lectures about the great diversity of Indian Amphibian Fauna and spend a lot of time answering queries (from 40 participants) from across Maharashtra and Karnataka.

 

That's the entire group with our Lost t-shirts :-)

 We had three night trails and a day trail in search of amphibians but unfortunately the species count was not too good (only around 10) since we were too late for the Monsoon season. Nonetheless we did get to see some great frogs and also managed to get some decent photographs.

Here's a bunch of photos of the frogs: 

Raorchestes luteolus
Common name: Blue-eyed bush frog

Check the size of this frog - the tiny mosquito on its head looks like a giant!

Raorchestes ponmudi
Common name: Large Ponmudi bush frog

Nyctibatrachus sp.

Raorchestes glandulosus
Common name: Glandular bush frog

Raorchestes glandulosus
Common name: Glandular bush frog

Hylarana aurantiaca
Common name: Golden frog

Hylarana aurantiaca
Common name: Golden frog

Nyctibatrachus sp.

Micrixalus sp.

Nyctibatrachus sp.

Raorchestes tuberohumerus (?)
Common name: Kudremukh Bush Frog

Raorchestes tuberohumerus
Common name: Kudremukh Bush Frog

Raorchestes glandulosus
Common name: Glandular bush frog

Fejervarya sp.

Hylarana aurantiaca
Common name: Golden frog

Male - Raorchestes chromasynchysi
Common name: Confusing green bush frog

Female - Raorchestes chromasynchysi
Common name: Confusing green bush frog

Female - Raorchestes chromasynchysi
Common name: Confusing green bush frog

Besides frogs Honey Valley is also an awesome place for birds, butterflies, reptiles and all sorts of insects. I hope to be back here soon to explore other facets of this area great biodiversity and hopefully also do a monsoon trip to witness the frog season at its prime :-)

 

 

Many thanks to Dr Biju (http://www.frogindia.org/) for sharing his amazing wealth of knowledge and to Balamahesh (http://www.wildlifediaries.com/)and Dr Caesar (http://www.drcaesarphotography.com/) for organizing this event!

More images from Nagla

To add to yesterday's post of the Blue Oakleaf butterfly from Nagla Block.. Here's a bunch of other stuff we saw there. 

It's getting hot and the forest has started shedding its leaves for the summer and the leaves of the Kusum tree (Schleichera oleosa) have started turning into the most amazing hues of red.. 

I'll start with the birds 

A female Golden Oriole takes off 

I got a fleeting view of this Black-naped Monarch Flycatcher 

The amazing crimson throat of the Vigors's sunbird

Ashy drongo (check out it's bright red eyes)

And a pair of billing Indian Grey Hornbills ...

.. besides these birds we saw the Red-whiskered bulbul, White-Throated Kingfisher, Palm swift, Purple sunbird, Flowerpecker, Common Myna, Spotted Dove, Brown-headed Barbet, Leafbird, River Tern, Jungle crow, Asian Koel, Rufous Treepie, Magpie Robin, Brahminy Kite, Cattle Egrets, Oriental Honey Buzzard and a White-browed bulbul... 

We also heard numerous birds that I have no idea about..

Moving to the butterflies - as it started heating up there was a lot of butterfly activity

Common Leopard

There were 100s of Line Blues flying all over the place.. I clicked quite a few of them..

Not quite sure which species of Line Blues these are but if I had to make a calculated guess I would go with Tailless Line Blue

Forget-me-not 

Chestnut-streaked Sailor

I finally managed a few decent photos of the Indian Red Flash   

Even managed this partly opened wing shot of the Flash  

 And a close up of the underside where you can see the Red glitter like spots.

And a Baronet

And to end this post a couple of other life forms..

A Golden coloured Jumping spider

 

and some sort of a fly with awesome green eyes...