KM’s scan is over, and he seems quite OK, but we have to wait for the doctor’s arrival and his verdict that we can, indeed, go home and resume our usual-abnormal life….but meanwhile, KM’s laptop and his Reliance card means that I can use my time to document the various life-forms we saw at Shivanahalli…

Let me start with the beautiful

TICKELL’S BLUE FLYCATCHER

that came out on the overcast, dull morning to sing for us and the children:

There were no startlingly new birds, but it was so nice to see all my old birds again and check if I did, indeed, remember their names! I got this silhouette, against the rainy sky, of a SMALL GREEN BEE-EATER with breakfast (not a bee, but a Dragonfly!) this female ASIAN KOEL looked mottled and beautiful in the leaves: Another breakfast eater was this INDIAN BUSHLARK: Almost at the end of the morning, this ORIENTAL HONEY BUZZARD floated past, with its typical pigeon-shaped head: And then we also spotted this LARGE GREY BABBLER with others, on the wire: There was, indeed, a very large raptor that landed in the trees as we were driving back, but oncoming traffic ensured that we could not see it properly before it disappeared. Butterflies and insects of various kinds were around.... My friend Uma says this is a MONKEY PUZZLE (this is my first sighting of one, then!) Here's a RED PIERROT: this one's some type of YELLOW: it was the children who showed us this beautiful insect which had pupated and was just about to come out of its shell: and Chandu showed the children this CRICKET and explained how it made its chirping sound: I found this un id, but beautiful insect on a leaf: and then found this yellow-and-black beetle scuttling off in a great hurry (camera-shy, no doubt!) A LUNA MOTH sat on a leaf: and an ANT was busy carrying off another dead one to its lair: A DUNG BEETLE was busy at work, interring another dead insect: We were zapped to see these MEALY BUGS under the leaves of some of the trees: Even a plain FLY looked so beautiful! The only reptile we saw was this ROCK AGAMA: Even the plants around were quite lovely, as were these red UN ID BERRIES (Though the Ashram grows coffee, Aishwarya Belliappa tells me these are different berries.) This reddish flower looked lovely, as did this whitish one: These little flowers blazed with blue: And we enjoyed the smell of this WILD JASMINE: Fat MUSHROOMS grew everywhere with the rains: and some of them looked like fruits! I couldn't id this one, though: It seemed to me that VANILLA PODS were being cultivated, but the children couldn't help us on this: So we just enjoyed the flowers as we saw them....

We even enjoyed the geometry of this uprooted tree as we walked back from the Ashram, heading homewards.