I went, as usual, to meet all the people who took the NTP….this time, there has been a full contingent (the accomodation at the Bannerghatta property of JLR is 8 X 2, and 17 people had registered, which meant that three of the young women have had to share one tent!

I realized that I knew several members beforehand, but it was nice to meet others for the first time, too!

The group was a very nice one, including a mother-daughter duo, and another young couple who had brought their delightful five-year-old, Arohi, along with them. Arohi and I had a great time swinging on the suspended tyre in the campus, and trailing around the place while the others were getting edified!

Here’s the very intelligent, articulate little girl (sorry, young female person):

After the day's classroom session was over, we went out on the Nature trail, and this time, I had a little longer with the group, thanks to Karthik. I remarked on these seeds of the SHOREA tree (thanks Karthik!) that looked like flowers themselves: A woody, thorny plant bore sweet-smelling white flowers: I could not id this fruit which looked like a smaller version of the mahogany seed pods: The INDIAN LABURNUM was shedding its "shower of gold" upon the ground: I didn't get to photograph too many birds in the short while that I was there, but it was nice to see some birds giving a practical demo of behaviour that Karthik had just explained. Here's a (possibly GREATER) COUCAL doing a "direct scratch" (that is, not with its leg over the wing): I was able to get this exceedingly lousy picture (those birds can MOVE!) of the COMMON IORA hawking for insects in the air; if you look closely at the smudge that the Iora is, you can see the insect in its mouth! It was also good to be able to show some of the first-time birders, why some birds are called so....here's a SMALL GREEN BEE-EATER, bee-eating! And as if to serve as an example of water birds, this WHITE-BREASTED KINGFISHER sat on a rock in the pond area, made white by cormorant droppings: In the JACARANDA trees, everywhere, the PURPLE SUNBIRDS were busy, craning their scrawny little necks to get greedily at the nectar in the flowers: The only butterfly I was able to catch on camera was one named after a bird, too! We did spot a COMMON MONGOOSE in the undergrowth, but the only mammal I photographed was the ever-increasing-in-numbers CHITAL: It was a lovely evening, too; the sun scudded through the clouds: It shone, too, through the bamboo thickets:

Well, here’s most of the NTP group as they came up the forest trail, with Karthik in their midst; they are so earnest about learning as much as they can, that weekend!

I do hope they enjoyed the program as much as I enjoyed meeting all of them (though I really had to chase up some of them to get their email ids and details!) and I hope they will be active members of the egroup, too!

Update: the minute I left, the group apparently sighted the Eurasian Eagle Owls, the only debate being whether there were two or three of them…*&^% Owls!! this is the first time I have gone on the Nature Trail with the NTP and not seen them!