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!

Butterflying @ Yeoor

Went to watch butterflies at Yeoor Hills (which is on the Thane side of the Sanjay Gandhi National Park) yesterday morning and it was a great experience! 

In a few hours of effortless butterfly-watching we* just sat in one spot near the small water body (that’s quickly drying) and watched 100s of butterflies engrossed in mud-puddling. 

Here's a few photos:

Line Blues

Spot Swordtails

Angled Pierrot

Leaf Blue

Zebra Blue

Short-banded Sailor

Angled Sunbeam - female

Golden Angle

Plum Judy

Common Leopard

Indian Red Flash

A few more group mud puddling photos ...

I have been going to Yeoor off and on since 7-8 years now but never have I seen soo many butterfly-watchers here! As long as this helps spread awareness about the plight of this city’s ever diminishing green areas I think it’s great  :-D …

…. but deep down my growing worry is that some people have started taking photos of butterflies(birds and wildlife in general) as a new means of Trophy hunting for our ever growing social media platforms!

Anyways here's a butterfly list for the day (I'm sure I've missed a few species on this list):

1 Common Tiger 

2 Blue Tiger 

3 Plain Tiger 

4 Common Crow

5 Common Mime 

6 Zebra Blue

7 Angled Pierrot

8 Common Pierrot

9 Golden Angle

10 Gaudy Baron

11 Lemon Pansy

12 Blue Pansy

13 Yellow Pansy

14 Chocolate Pansy

15 Peacock Pansy

16 Angled Sunbeam

17 Indian Red Flash 

18 Leaf Blue

19 Blue Oak Leaf 

20 Common Sailor 

21 Short-banded Sailor

22 Line Blue (s)

23 Common Jay

24 Forget-me-not 

25 Malayan

26 Common Hedge Blue 

27 Plum Judy 

28 Spot Swordtail 

29 Spotless Grass Yellow 

30 Common Emigrant 

31 Vindhyan Bob

32 Black Rajah 

33 Glassy Tiger

34 Bush Brown 

35 Common Leopard 

36 Common Psyche 

37 Common Gull

38 Danaid Eggfly

39 Indian Sunbeam 

40 Common Cerulean

41 Plains Cupid 
42 Chestnut-streaked Sailor

Besides the amazing array of butterflies Yeoor is also a great place for other forms of wildlife… we saw a few birds – Brown-headed Barbet, Crested Serpent Eagle, Oriental Honey Buzzard, Ashy Drongos, Red Whiskered Bulbuls and even an elusive Little Heron…. 

Then there were a few insects – Stalk-eyed Flies, Hover Flies, Horse Flies, Honey bees, Carpenter Bees, Potter Wasps, Mud Dauber Wasps, Day-flying Moths, Silk Cotton bugs.. and a few species of dragonflies, damselflies and spiders.

To end this post here’s a photo of one the spiders we found at the edge of the water body..  

 * - Shivani, Uma, Tripura and myself