Daughters of Kokrebellur

While visiting some friends in Bangalore over the weekend I managed to drag them to see the famed daughters of Kokrebellur. 

Kokrebellur around 80 kms away from Bangalore is a tiny village with a long established bonding between the Spot-billed Pelicans and the villagers who have adopted this bird as their heritage, since they consider the birds as harbingers of good luck and prosperity to the village.

One of the villagers who guided us to a large tree which had over 20 pairs of these huge birds (who return every year at around the same period to nest here) was keen to also explain that to the villagers these famed birds are "like a daughter coming home for delivery...."

Here's some photos I clicked of the Spot-billed Pelican (Pelecanus phillipensis) we saw...

Unfortunately, we were a few weeks too early to see the other famed daughters of the village - the  Painted Stork (Ibis leucocephalus), so I guess that calls for a revisit later in the season.. :-)

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!