The living creatures we saw were quite varied. Though the safari organized by the Forest Department was a little disappointing for the children (who of course had their hearts set on a big cat sighting!) they did enjoy whatever they did see, and were quite curious to know things.

In fact, even as Chandu and I waited for the children to come to the hired bus, we noticed a pair of

INDIAN GREY HORNBILLS

one of which stayed on the tree long enough for me to get a quick shot:

and one of the first birds we were able to show the children when we arrived was the

WHITE-BREASTED KINGFISHER:

Some of the other birds we saw included a sighting that was very thrilling for me...the endemic-to-the-Western Ghats RUFOUS BABBLER and though it hid in the Lantana bushes, and wouldn't show itself later, I still got a nice video of its call: At several places, we saw the male SCARLET MINIVET as well as the female, jumping around high up in the tree canopy: Another little jewel was the SMALL BLUE KINGFISHER that often was seen at various lakes, waiting patiently for a fish to come near the surface: We saw lots of GREATER FLAMEBACK WOODPECKERS everywhere: the children were delighted to see the EURASIAN GOLDEN ORIOLE at several places: I managed to get a video of its call, too: You can hear the children exclaiming in wonder! I think that this is a SPANGLED DRONGO though it's rather far away and against the light! I got the call of this bird, too, though I am not sure which kind of Drongo it is: Coming back after the JLR safari on the motorbike, Jadeswamy and I looked up to see this truly magnificient BLACK EAGLE soaring overhead; I quickly aimed from the running bike, and got a foozly shot! Everywhere, the RUFOUS TREEPIE also showed its beauty: Some smaller creatures also delighted the children. Here's a PILL BUG going about its business: a beautiful LANTERN BUG: I was amazed, in the VGKK campus, to see dozens of EARTHWORMS in a tree-trunk, moving in the water. What were they doing there? I don't know... of course, I got a short video of their wavy movement! These NYMPHS on a leaf, looked so beautiful: this CATERPILLAR slowly came sailing down on to the ground on a strand of silk, at ATREE: So I also got this "river" or "highway" of ants, flowing along the rocks: I got several butterflies, including some when the trip was over and I was roaming around the Valley School campus, waiting for the school bus to take me home! Here's the COMMON FOUR-RING: the COMMON PIERROT: the COMMON CASTOR: the BARONET (why was it named so, I wonder?) the YELLOW PANSY: Though we were unable to see any elephants, or big cats, we certainly did see a lot of Langurs, and on the way back from the JLR safari, Jadeswamy showed me this INDIAN POND TERRAPIN: You can see the head of another one poking up through the water, on the right hand side. Apart from the tiny frog that I posted about earlier, amphibians included this lovely TOAD: Reptiles included this CHECKERED KEELBACK that we saw swimming in the pond near the Forest Dept office at K.Gudi: A GARDEN LIZARD sitting on a granite post: When it feels threatened, the lizard comes up with a defence mechanism that seems for all the world like a smile! Here's a HOUSE GECKO that the children handled with aplomb: Amongst the mammals we sighted, apart from the Stripe-necked Mongoose, were CHITAL OR SPOTTED DEER: The BARKING DEER were plentiful: When there are plenty of deer in a forest, that's always a good sign, because it means there's plenty of food for the predators, too, who can thrive. The food chain is in place! I took a running shot of this WILD BOAR: Some of the Forest Department people had rescued this SAMBHAR FAWN and the children went ga-ga over it! They might not have seen wild elephants, but the sight of the camp elephants, Shriram, Kanti, and Kavita, being given a thorough scrubbing in the pond, held them enthralled for quite a while. Here's Shriram, the magnificient tusker: In fact, the children really seemed to empathize with animals they could touch; at the Soliga settlement, it was nice to see kids clustered around a (real) kid! Here's a newborn pup, that we found at the Shivanasamudra Falls, that had the children oohing and aahing: Jadeswamy showed me a great many trees, this time, and they are on my Picasa Web Album; but I loved seeing the lotuses in the pond: I showed the children how, from a seed left on a tree by a bird, an epiphyte could spring to life on a tree: We saw several varieties of mushroom: But I didn't have to tell me if they were edible: </lj-cut> My last shot is of these unknown caterpillars, looking so beautiful on the underside of a leaf: