{"id":348,"date":"2010-06-12T13:54:29","date_gmt":"2010-06-12T13:54:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.apostrophicseasons.com\/journal\/?p=348"},"modified":"2017-09-08T10:56:20","modified_gmt":"2017-09-08T10:56:20","slug":"motoring-to-nandi-betta","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pradeepshankar.net\/journal\/2010\/06\/12\/motoring-to-nandi-betta\/","title":{"rendered":"motoring to Nandi Betta"},"content":{"rendered":"

motoring to Nandi Betta . . .<\/strong><\/p>\n

After a month-long hectic schedule of attending functions at different places, this Saturday gave the much needed break. And Nandi Betta was on the cards for a long time.<\/p>\n

Unlike weekdays, I woke up early at 5 and left home by 6. Soon after crossing the BIAL, I could see Nandi Betta engulfed by huge clouds. I felt the place resembled the Coorg or Kodachadri hill range, with absolutely no visibility beyond a yard or two.<\/p>\n

On the way up, from the foothills, heavy mist and clouds welcomed me till the very top. One can enjoy a beautiful drive up the hill with lots of greenery around, thanks to the pre-monsoon rains. I had a Coorg or Western Ghat feeling as hardly there were any dry patches. I could hear a lot of birds chirping in the trees, but I could hardly see them. Sipping a hot cup of tea at the tea stall, I started wondering when these clouds would move away so I could put my new 70-300 Nikkor to test. Winds blew faster, there came the rain. After enjoying the chilling breeze, I slowly couched into the car seat. It was already 9 am and there was no sign of sunlight. Parking the car at SankeyCircle [the first level, ticket counter, tea-stall], I started climbing up the hill. Reached atop by about 10 am and was hungry enough for a quick breakfast.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Indian Robin<\/em><\/p>\n

About 1030 or 1045, clouds started drifting away and there was some light, not sufficient but lot better than what it was earlier. I was glad that I could locate where the chirping of the birds were coming from. Slowly and steadily I sneaked into the small forest region on the top. Struggled a bit initially to locate the birds through my lensview as they looked miles away. After clouds moved much away, I could see those sun-kissed tree tops and chirping of birds became a lot louder. Though I spotted a lot of birds, I could capture only a few of them.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

red whiskered bulbul pycnonotus Jocusus<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

After a few clicks, rains forced me to cover my camera very frequently. So far I had spotted red-whiskered bulbul, fantail, white cheeked barbets, blue-capped thrush and Indian Blue robins were aplenty. While I was looking for more of Blue robins, they were full of activity in and around bushes, I could hardly get a good glimpse of them. Instead the others like barbets and bulbuls were happy to see the lens eye.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

white cheeked Barbet<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In the early hours of the morning, there were so many other birds. Due to mist and cloud, also most importantly with the lack of knowledge , I couldn identify most of the birds. This being my first attempt at birding, I consoled myself to acquire more knowledge the next time I click. After all, one has to pass through the hard learning curve. By noon a big crowd came in and with all the noise around, birds flew beyond the borderlines and into the distant sky. I descended down slowly with a note of promise to learn more about birding to make my next visit to Nandi Betta more fruitful.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

motoring to Nandi Betta . . . After a month-long hectic schedule of attending functions at different places, this Saturday gave the much needed break. And Nandi Betta was on the cards for a long time. Unlike weekdays, I woke up early at 5 and left home by 6. Soon after crossing the BIAL, I… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,30],"tags":[56,62,116,157,223],"class_list":["post-348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-travel","category-wildlife","tag-birds","tag-bulbul","tag-indian-robin","tag-nandi-hills","tag-white-cheaked-barbet"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pradeepshankar.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pradeepshankar.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pradeepshankar.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pradeepshankar.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pradeepshankar.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=348"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pradeepshankar.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1789,"href":"https:\/\/pradeepshankar.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348\/revisions\/1789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pradeepshankar.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pradeepshankar.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pradeepshankar.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}