It was just four of us: Padma, Ramaswamy, Srini and I… who decided to go to

Savandurga

on a misty monsoon morning.

Sign in Kannada for our destination:

The mist in the trees…

Which slowly cleared up:

Our activities attracted a lot of attention!

We did see a lot of birds…here are some.

Black Drongos

This Ashy Prinia presented a cartoony view.

Green Bee-eater with dragonfly catch

Laughing Dove

The butterflies were out in force, too!

Yellow Orange-tip

Dark Blue Tiger

Plain Tiger caterpillar

Pointed Ciliate Blue

Common Wanderer

Dark Grass Blue

Common Gull

Here’s Srini, delighted with the way a butterfly trustingly climbed on to his finger (if one wipes one’s perspiration off, they are attracted to the minerals in the fluid)

That was the Pointed Ciliate Blue again.

Some of the insects we saw included this White-tailed Damselfly

and this beautiful Copper Beetle (at least, that’s what I named it!)

Wildflowers were varied and plentiful.

Here’s a lovely Balloon Vine:

Mexican Poppy

Gossypium sp (Mallow)

Waterlilies in a pond

Even seed pods can look stunning

Mushrooms

Dabbaguli was one of the places we stopped at

And just outside the town, we spotted a bonus…the Jungle Nightjar!

Padma brought her tasty cutlets, and we feasted on them

Later we also had some local breakfast.

We stopped near two old temples, the Shaivite sAvaNdi veerabhadraswAmy and bhadrakAlamma temple

and the Vaishnavite Lakshmi Narasimha temple

Here’s narasimhA, the man-lion avatAr of Vishnu, with His consort Lakshmi, who is his laptop…

The deities were being taken out in procession, which was a nice bonus.

This life-like dog in a vendor’s stall nearly had me fooled.

Part of this temple seemed lost in dreams of another time….

Some rather risky rock-climbing was going on.

The scenery was stunning:

It was on the rocky outcrop in the centre that we spotted three Egyptian vultures.

We returned home, well pleased with our morning, stopping to say “bye” to this Oriental Garden Lizard which also seemed to be having a swinging time.

Looking forward to the next weekend outing…!