Mother Nature

White-cheeked barbet

2015-11-13T06:40:00.000-08:00

The white-cheeked barbet or small green barbet (Megalaima viridis) is a species of barbet found in southern India. It is similar to brown-headed barbet (Megalaima zeylanica). It is endemic to the forest areas of the Western Ghats and adjoining hills, in south India.

Photograph taken by Mohan Kumar Kalaiah

White-cheeked barbet is about 16 to 18 cm long, and have green body, brownish streaked head. It has a distinctive supercilium and a broad white cheek stripe below the eye. Like other barbets it mainly feeds on fruits, sometimes may eat insects.

Like woodpeckers, White-cheeked barbets are primary cavity nesters. Both sexes excavate the nest and it can take about 20 days to complete the nest. Barbets begin breeding in December and continue to nest until May. It play an important role in forests as seed dispersal agents.

Deepavali - the festival of lights

2015-11-10T00:00:00.000-08:00

Deepavali is one of the festivals celebrated in India. It signifies victory of light over darkness, knowledge over ignorence, good over evil.

Photograph taken by Mohan Kumar Kalaiah

Happy Deepavali !

Red-Whiskered Bulbul

2015-09-15T06:52:00.000-07:00

The red-whiskered bulbul (Pycnonotus jocosus) is native to India, Burma, Cambodia, China, Malaysia, Java and Sumatra (islands in Indonesia), North and South Vietnam.

Photograph taken by Mohan Kumar Kalaiah

Red-whiskered bulbul is about 20 centimeters long, and have brown back wings, white breast and long tail. It has a prominent tall pointed crest, white cheeks with red whiskers behind their eyes and thin black moustach. It feeds on variety of fruits (berries etc.), nectar and small insects.

Both sexes work together for several days to weave an open cup nest. Red-whiskered bulbuls weave the nest using leaves, twigs, root, bark strips etc. Both birds incubate the eggs and care for the young birds. Its life span is about 11 years.

Spiders - Skilled weavers

2011-10-29T00:20:00.000-07:00

Spiders are arthropods. An arthropod is an animal with a hard outer shell (exoskeleton or external skeleton), a segmented body (body divided into segments), and limbs with joints. Arthropods constitute more than 90% of the animal kingdom and include insects, spiders, centipedes, shrimp, and crayfish.

Spiders live almost everywhere on earth, they live in forests, plains, mountains, deserts and underwater. Some spiders live on animals! There are about 36000 kinds of spiders and it is believed that there may be as many as 170,000 kinds of them. Spiders have two main body parts (cephalothorax and abdomen) and have eight legs. Most spiders have eight eyes, but some have as many as 24 eyes!! and others do not have any eyes. Most spiders eat insects and some eat fish and frogs, birds and lizards, large spiders may eat smaller spiders. Spiders bite their prey with their sharp fangs and the poison from the fangs slows or kills the prey. Young spiders are called spiderlings.

Snail - Fascinating animal

2011-08-14T06:05:00.000-07:00

Snails are the oldest known animals in the world (evolved more than 600 million years ago). Snails are very small animals that are only a few inches long and weigh only a few ounces. They have adapted to a variety of habitat such as land, dessert, ocean etc. As a snail moves it leaves behind a trail of slime. This allows them to move easily across any type of land without injuring its body.

Flowers and Flowers

2009-09-27T21:10:00.000-07:00

Flower arrangement made for Dasara 2009

Variety of flowers grown in the campus for Dasara 2009

Roses in rose garden

Kodachaadri - altitude of 1343m

2008-03-24T21:33:00.000-07:00

Kodachadri is a mountain peak at an altitude of1343 m above sea level in the Western Ghats in Shivamogga (Shimoga) district, Karnataka State.

As we had planned, we left mysore by 8.30 pm by bus and reached the place Kumbale in Shivamogga by 7.00 am. Here we finish the morning duties, had coffee, breakfast and started climbing by 8.30 am.

Our team and we started from Kumbale

Kumbale

From this place we walked around 5 km and reached actual starting point to climb Kodachaadri. After we reached this place we rested for some time and started climbing the mountain. It was a thick forest, as we walked in there was a water point. From this place, we had to climb the steeply sloping part of the mountain.

Some Views on the Way

As we climbed the mountain, there we reached a water fall it was a beautiful sight to watch and it was the coolest place in the trek.

Water falls on the way

Here, near water falls we spent some time and again started to climb the mountain, as we climbed the mountain some of us lost the path and was climbing the mountain wrong direction. Later our guide got all of us back and took us in right direction. After almost 1 hour of climbing the mountain we got one more water spot and it was the last one, here we had our lunch which we got with us and rested for some time.

After resting we again started climbing the mountain and it was the last peak which had forest after this mountain there was no shade and we had to trek on afternoon sun which was very hot on that day. Finally we came out of forest and started seeing us on the top of earth. It was a beautiful sight to watch and also it was very hot and we started feeling hot and it was exhausting, but we kept on moving to reach the target ‘Kodachaadri’.

View from top of mountain

In the scorching sun we continued walking and on the way we saw people working to put up road from the bottom of mountain to peak, and here jeeps were moving carrying devotees regularly. Finally we reached the last mountain and there was some amount of shade for us. It was almost 4 in the evening when we reached the place where we were staying.

Place where we spent the night

View of sunset

Here we recharged our self and started walk to reach peak to witness sunset. It was a beautiful sight to watch and by looking at this sight we all forgot about the tiredness. After this we came back to our place and was very hungry so started having eatables which we had got with our self. By 9 we all finished our dinner and spent some tine chatting and decided to go to witness sunrise by 5 in the morning.

It was very cold in the night and the temperature was in single digit and we could not sleep in the night. Finally, time became 5 in the morning and we started to climb the mountain to witness the sunrise. As we climber the mountain in dark some times we din’t realize the downward slope of the mountain and almost slipped down. We reached the top on time and started waiting for the sun. It was windy on the top and as the sun came up wind started to blow with great pressure and we could not stand on the top. Finally sun started coming up and it was a fantastic sight to watch. After this we took some snaps and finally came to our place.

In the Morning

We all finished our breakfast and started to descend down in other pathway, it was a short path when compared to climbing and also it was easiest. We directly went to Kumbale reached by 3 had lunch and took rest for some time and started travelling towards Mysore by 5 in the evening. We reached Mysore by midnight.

Kumara Parvatha - A trudge

2007-06-06T00:58:00.000-07:00

Kumara Parvatha - "2nd highest peak in Karnataka" and "toughest trekking place in karnataka" this is what all i knew about this place... Kumara Parvatha!

starting point of 'Kumara Parvatha'

Kumara Parvata is at an altitude of 1350 meters, the route is around 15kms from Subramanya. There are two routes for reaching the peak (Pushpagiri), you can either start from Subramanya or from the other side, i.e., Somwarpet in Coorg.

Our plan was to climb up from the Kukke side i.e., Subramanya, reach Pushpagiri, sleep there in the night, and then get back down in the same way. Unlike our previous treking to Thadiyandamole "tallest peak in Coorg" and Edaku'meri "railway trek" we made a lot of preparation to this treking (Kumara Parvatha) starting from food, water, clothes and medical kit.

As we took up this trekking through NSS, we were 60 in number and we left mysore in 2 buses on 23rd evening and reached Madikeri around 10 pm. We finished our dinner, which was arranged by our classmate Achaiah and his parents in their home. Dinner was fantastic we had rice, sambar and butter milk. After finishing our dinner we started moving to Subramanya.

We reached Subramanya at about 3.00 AM and went to room which was already booked for us. We slept their for the rest of night. Morning we got up early, and got ready to trek the parvatha. Some of us visited the temple while others stayed away. We all finished our breakfast in hotel 'Kumaara Krupha'.

Day 1, we were around 60 and we started our treking around 8.30 am in the morning from the Kukke side. We started walked from subramanya temple towards the starting point of trekking from where our trek starts. As we kept walking we came across a signboard which said the peak is around18 Kms. Here we all took few snaps and few guidelines were given to us by NSS officer and finally we started our treking.

First part of treking was quite steep and it was through thick forest. There was some bit of exhaustion, but we could manage because of the shade. After 1.5 to 2 hours of trekking we reached a dry land "Baaatd Rashi" by this time the sun was very hot and we started getting exhausted. Finally, we reached "Giri Gadde" and Bhatta's house by afternoon.

These are few scenery which we saw as we move towards "Giri Gadde"

As we approached Giri Gadde we could see one small plantation kind of place where they grew Areca trees, as we went near it we could see one hut, this was famous Bhatta's house where we were going have our lunch. As we went nearer we could see bannana plants, pineapple plants (which i din't see before) and many more. It was a very good place, here we took rest for some time and some of us slept for some time. Later we finished our lunch by 1.00 pm and again started walking towards pushpagiri.

Giri Gadde - Bhatta's House

After a simple and nourishing lunch at the famous Bhatta’s house, we started walking. This part of the day was very hot and there was no shade. Some of us were completely exhausted because of scorching sun's heat, finally after 5 to 6 hours of walk we all reached a point where forest starts again.

Here we waited for our trekkers to reach us so that we can go together, but it was getting late so we had doubt about whether we can reach kumara parvatha? or not? From here we could see some people climbing the rock (other group). Soon every one reached this point and again we started waking. It was already 7 or 7.15 when we crossed the forest, but moon was reflecting the light to sufficient amount which made easy to climb the rock as we had enough amount of light. Rock was small but very steep so we were very careful while climbing the rock. After climbing this rock we started moving towards the peak.

Finally, by the end of day we reached the peak - Pushpagiri "2nd highest peak in Karnataka - 1350 meters" and "toughest trekking place in karnataka". Already it was 8 o'clock, we rested for 10 to 15 min, and some of us started collecting wood for camp fire and others to prepare for dinner. After some time we got sufficient wood for camp fire and for fire to cook food. By 9.30 pm we all had maggie for dinner it was really very good. After dinner some of us slept thinking to see the sun rise in morning and others were awake and kept on singing and sharing their experience whole night and waiting for the morning.

Next morning we all got up at very early and got ready with camera to capture the sun rise. But here we could see even more than what we were expecting to see. It was amazing, awesome.... i'm sure many will not have opportunity to see these scenery in their life time.

After watching all this amazing things at the peak we all started walking back to Subramanya here we refreshed ourselves and started journey back to mysore in our bus.

I wish i trek this Kumara Parvatha again.