Features: Magazine | Literary Review | Life | Metro Plus | Open Page | Education Plus | Book Review | Business | SciTech | Friday Review | Young World | Property Plus | Quest | Folio |

ECOWATCH

In the high ranges

SWARNA V. AND RAMAKRISHNAN S.

Munnar and its surrounding hills are a birdwatcher's delight.

Photos: Ramakrishnan S.

Wonderful photo opportunities: The Nilgiri tahr

"YOU come in November... I will show Shortwing and Grassbird," declared Eldhose, with familiar confidence. To us this was a tempting invite. Intoxicated by our success at chasing rarities with the famed bird guide, Eldhose, we decided to go after some more coveted Western Ghats' birds.

His guaranteed assurance of wonderful photo opportunities of rare birds found only in certain pockets of the high ranges of the Western Ghats increased our excitement.

Munnar, set at a height of over 5000 feet in the high ranges of the Cardamom Hills, was the chosen destination for our adrenalin-rush jaunt. The name, Munnar, originates from mun aar (three rivers in Tamil and Malayalam). It points to the town's location at the confluence of three mountain streams — the Mudrapuzha, the Nallathanni and the Kundala.

Munnar conjures up a picture of a charming, romantic location with its misty rolling hills, green dales and carpets of well-manicured tea gardens. It has been a much sought after tourist destination especially popular with honeymooning couples.

Exceptional avifauna

The Nilgiri pipit.

Ironically, this over-crowded and poorly maintained honeymooner paradise is a hotspot for some elusive and exceptional avifauna. Not many are aware that Munnar and its vicinities are home to 15 of the 16 South Indian endemic bird species.

Despite the large-scale deforestation of natural vegetation — grassland and dense shola forests — to accommodate huge tracts of tea gardens, it is heartening that Munnar and its surrounding hills are still able to delight birdwatchers.

From Kochi airport, we made for the High Range Club, a three-and-half-hour drive (120 km). The High Range Club is tucked away from the madding crowd of Munnar town. A quaint and colonial structure houses the actual club, which is open to the Club's members and the guests staying at the Club's rooms.

Interestingly, the club also has a trophy room filled with tahr head mounts and an attached bar open only to men! Our cottages, set in a block away from the main building, were well-appointed with a small parlour leading to the bedroom. We were served tea in a traditional tea-set by a well-groomed and uniformed attendant, who was articulate in multiple languages, including English.

At the crack of dawn, our target bird was the White-bellied Shortwing. We stopped at a bend in the road towards Eravikulam from Munnar. The small, degraded shola patch was a definite "Shortwing spot," claimed Eldhose. We tried to phish out the bird but he would not show himself. His call, loud and clear, came from very close in the undergrowth but he was nowhere to be seen.

We gave up after an hour's effort and headed back to town for a hurried breakfast at Saravana Bhavan. Post-breakfast, we tried our luck at a tea estate close to the earlier spot.

This time, we hit the jackpot! Out he popped into a small clearing in the bush and the camera firing would not stop. He kept crossing the road back and forth, flying from one bush to the other and he was in full song.

His calls were the only way we could locate him in the dense and misty rainforest undergrowth. We were also lucky to find the Black and Orange Flycatcher in the same shola patch.

While we were photographing the Shortwing, a mixed hunting party of Bar-winged Flycatcher Shrikes, Canary Flycatchers and White-eyes flew in along with the mist and took our cameras away from the Shortwing! Suddenly there was so much action around us that we didn't know which bird to shoot. Plus the mist was so thick that the visibility was not more than a few feet. At the end of the hour we were happy with the gigabytes in our cameras.

In the elephant grass

The Broad-tailed grassbird.

After the morning birding, we stopped for a quick lunch and headed for the Grassbird location. The habitat for this bird is tall dense elephant grass on steep mountain slopes. None of us expected the gruelling climb through five-foot elephant grass with our heavy camera equipment. However, with the benefit of hindsight, the opportunity to spot the elusive Grassbird was a huge incentive for us to run up the hill!

And just as promised, Eldhose soon produced our first view of this Western Ghat beauty. He was moving about in the grass and bracken, like a rat, and popped his head out once in a while at point-blank range.

These were only few opportunities to take pictures of this bird — and we made the most of it.

Our next and last stop for the day was by a girls' school near the "Shortwing spot". Here the Indian Blue Robin and the Nilgiri Flycatcher were the highlight species. En route, we managed to get wonderful views of Tytler's Warbler, Brown-breasted Flycatcher, White-bellied Blue Flycatcher, Western-crowned Warbler and Greenish Leaf Warbler.

At Eravikulam

Early next morning our destination was Eravikulam National Park about 14 km from Munnar. Home to the endangered Nilgiri Tahr (a rare and only South Indian wild goat), Eravikulam is definitely the epitome of grassland beauty, interspersed with patches of thick shola.

The Kerala Forest Department has recently commissioned a few mini-buses to take tourists from the entrance of the park's tourism zone on the only motorable road in Eravikulam National Park. These buses play a documentary giving basic information about the Park and its conservation efforts. The buses drop off tourists at the first forest checkpost; thereafter people are allowed to explore another kilometre of the Park by foot.

The White-bellied shortwing.

In Eravikulam, we were fortunate to get opportunities to photograph the Nilgiri Pipit, Nilgiri Tahr, Nilgiri Flycatcher and the Grey-breasted Laughing Thrush. Of course, Eravikulam does not disappoint you when it comes to its favourite animal — the Nilgiri Tahr. We found three of them squatting idly on a rocky outcrop. Higher up the hills we could spot at least 15 sunning themselves on a rock.

Still more left

We had missed the Neelakurunji bloom by just over a month, so that left us with a wait of another 12 years to witness this natural spectacle! And the afternoon rain washed away our hopes of spotting the Indian Swiftlet in a hillside. These disappointments were signs enough for us to load our equipment into the car and head to Hornbill Camp, Thattekad, down in the humid plains alongside the Periyar.

In spite of all the new finds for us, there are still a lot more left to photograph — Indian Swiftlet, Brown-backed Needletails, Pacific Swallows... a strong reason to plan a return to Munnar!

Factfile