Just About Everything

Tadoba National Park, Maharashtra, India Tadoba Natonal Park in Maharashtra is at a distance of 130 km from Nagpur. There are several trains connecting major cities to Nagpur  and the flight connections are pretty good too. We flew till Nagpur and for the onward journey to Tadoba Moharli gate, we hired a car. It took a little over 3 hours to reach Tadoba from Nagpur, the road was pretty good. Since all our safaris (except two, one from the buffer zone and the other one was from the Kuswanda gate) were from the Moharli gate, we decided to stay close to Moharli. The other entry gates are Kolara, Nave Gaon, Pangdi, and Zari Gate. We had booked our accommodation at the MTDC near the Moharli gate in Tadoba. I quite liked the accommodation. Reasonable with A/C and mini fridge, a verandah overlooking a water body and jungle, room service, a well equipped restaurant....I think that is a lot to ask for in a jungle! We picked up the hottest time of the year to visi...

Nicobar  Hawk  Owl ( Isolata) Continuing with my earlier post on the  Rare Fauna of Great Nicobar , Nicobar has eight endemic birds which are found nowhere but in the islands of Nicobar. They are - Nicobar Megapode, Nicobar Bulbul, Nicobar Imperial Pigeon, Nicobar Scops Owl, Nicobar Serpent Eagle, Nicobar Parakeet, Nicobar Jungle Flycatcher, and Nicobar Sparrowhawk. Besides these birds, there are quite a few of the Andaman species as well as birds from the Indian mainland that are found in Great Nicobar. These bird pictures have been taken by Soma Jha during her recent visit to Great Nicobar. Nicobar Long Tailed Parakeet Nicobar Serpent Eagle Nicobar  Parakeet   Nicobar Imperial Pigeon  Glossy-Starling-Nicobar  Great-Nicobar-Hill-Mynah Nicobar Hooded Pitta Nicobar Pied Imperial Pigeon Slaty-Legged Rail, Nicobar

Due to its inaccessibility, Great Nicobar is not an oft visited destination. Besides government officials, researchers and scholars can get permission to visit it and must restrict themselves to the Campbell Bay area and the two roads, one that goes from east to west and the other goes along the eastern coast towards south to Indira point which is the southernmost point of India. Reaching Andaman is easy because there are several flight connections to Port Blair, however for Nicobar Islands one has to take a helicopter service (Pawan Hans Helicopter service) or board a ship from Port Blair. The first option is the best since it gets you there faster but will cost you a lot more, and the 2nd option takes a very long time (30 hours) but it is a comfortable journey because the entire ship is air conditioned. The Long-tailed or Crab-eating macaques are an interesting primate species found only in the Nicobar Islands. The endangered Nicobar treeshrew, which is around 15 cm with a ta...

I am sharing two very short videos from the Vaikuntha Perumal temple in Kanchipuram, India . The videos are courtesy Soma Jha. The first one is a very brief video just to give you a general idea about the interiors of the temple and the 2 nd one is a clipping of quite a unique musical instrument in the temple. It combines together the sounds of drums and bells quite well.

In continuation to my post on the Lion-tailed Macaque , the endangered primate that is found only in India, here is an interesting video of the Lion tailed Macaque taken by Soma Jha. This lion-tailed Macaque has gotten hold of a bottle and thinks he has got something really-really precious. The way he inspects it, tries to eat it, and makes sense out of it is quite interesting to watch. It reminds me of the film…Gods must be Crazy.