Living Creatures in Shivanahalli Ramakrishna Ashram....

June 15, 2010

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:

tickell's blue flycatcher 120610 ashrama

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!) bee-eater and dragonfly 120610 this female ASIAN KOEL looked mottled and beautiful in the leaves: female koel 120610 Another breakfast eater was this INDIAN BUSHLARK: indian bushlark with prey 120610 Almost at the end of the morning, this ORIENTAL HONEY BUZZARD floated past, with its typical pigeon-shaped head: ohb120610 And then we also spotted this LARGE GREY BABBLER with others, on the wire: large grey babbler 120610 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!) un id silverline 120610 Here's a RED PIERROT: red pierrot 120610 this one's some type of YELLOW: un id yellow bfly 120610 it was the children who showed us this beautiful insect which had pupated and was just about to come out of its shell: un id larva 120610 and Chandu showed the children this CRICKET and explained how it made its chirping sound: cricket 120610 I found this un id, but beautiful insect on a leaf: un id insect on leaf 120610 and then found this yellow-and-black beetle scuttling off in a great hurry (camera-shy, no doubt!) un id yellowblack beetle 120610 A LUNA MOTH sat on a leaf: luna moth 120610 and an ANT was busy carrying off another dead one to its lair: ant carrying anotther A DUNG BEETLE was busy at work, interring another dead insect: dung beetle 120610 We were zapped to see these MEALY BUGS under the leaves of some of the trees: 120610 aphids under leaf Even a plain FLY looked so beautiful! fly shivanahalli ashram The only reptile we saw was this ROCK AGAMA: rock agama 120610 Even the plants around were quite lovely, as were these red UN ID BERRIES red berries 120610 (Though the Ashram grows coffee, Aishwarya Belliappa tells me these are different berries.) This reddish flower looked lovely, un id small reddish flower 120610 as did this whitish one: un id whitish flower These little flowers blazed with blue: flower bed near Brahmananda Kuti And we enjoyed the smell of this WILD JASMINE: wild jasmine 120610 Fat MUSHROOMS grew everywhere with the rains: mushroom 120610 and some of them looked like fruits! un id mushrooms orange I couldn't id this one, though: un id fruit 120610 It seemed to me that VANILLA PODS were being cultivated, but the children couldn't help us on this: vanilla pods? So we just enjoyed the flowers as we saw them.... un id lady's slipper type flower

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

uprooted tree