In Bangalore or Bengaluru once again for a meeting and our hosts kindly arranged for us to spend a few days in their home in a hill station near the Western Ghats at Kelagur, Chikmagalur in the state of Karnataka, about 5 hours out from Bangalore. The drive was long and arduous but the destination totally worth the effort. Perched on a hillside at Kelagur was this lovely house.
the beautiful house at Kelagur, about 3500ft above sea levelAt daybreak, the rolling sea of clouds was stunningPerched around the roof eaves where they had made a nest, the house martins huddles to keep warmone of the most common birds around the house was the black throated munia, here in chestnut brown livery…we could see and shoot them from the terrace, seated comfortably…and with a cup of local coffee too!some of the black throated munias looked less brown than the previous oneThe migratory season started and this Asian brown flycatcher posedthe similar looking brown breasted flycatcherFirst lifer here, the Indian yellow titthe bare trees and garden were a bird magnet…..the lovely grey headed canary FCthe purple rumped sunbird flitted amongst the flowers and twigs in the gardenThe oriental white eye or Indian white eye as it’s known here was activecommon tailorbirdthe stunningly blue back of thje Velvet fronted nuthatchscarlet or orange minivets as they are known here were plentiful…I’ve never seen so many minivets in one location before and at eye level height as well!and then the barbets appeared…a Malabar barbet on the left with a hint of blur on the cheek…and a common or garden coppersmith barbet on the rightthe gorgeously coloured Malabar barbet with its distinctive blue cheeks..endemic to the Western GhatsHere, less colourful Malabar barbet in foreground with a larger white cheeked barbet behindwhite cheeked barbet…a native of southern india, similar to the lineated barbet we see in south east asiaand one of the more stunning birds of the day, the yellow browed bulbul…another lifer.yellow browed bulbuloverhead soared a crested serpent eagleand on our walk on one of the many trails around, this pair of red whiskered bulbuls posed for uswe were surrounded by pepper plants….and coffee plantsripe coffee beansa black eagle soared and there were so many pretty butterflies…Stunning purple sunbird!purple sunbirdred vented bulbulanother lifer…the nilgiri flowerpeckeroriental honey buzzard buzzing us…our hosts kindly arranged a a beautiful traditional dance performance, the Bharatanatyam…stunning!and the sunset to end our first day was suitably beautiful
The Natural Traveller 