I saw it for the living, breathing ecosystem that it actually is.Īnd that is probably what John Muir meant, when he said, “In every walk with nature, one receives far more than he seeks”.Nightbird had broken out of Ravencroft Asylum. But most importantly, I felt that in this trip, I saw the forest floor for the first time. I saw two types of spiders I hadn’t seen before, and a number of different types of frogs, insects and lizards. While I did not get to see what I hoped to, I saw a lot more. Before heading for dinner, I took a quick walk around and saw a number of spiders of different species. The icing on the cake, that evening, however, was a tarantula!Īs I was about to wind up for the day, I reflected on how the day went. It was dark by the time I got back to the camp. I spent the entire afternoon photographing a number of fishing spiders – something I’d seen for the very first time. They stay afloat on water using the water’s surface tension, much like water skaters. Fishing spiders stay near the water and feed on fish and other smaller aquatic life. I also saw a number of spiders on the river bed, including the fishing spider. There were a number of frogs and crickets close to the water. The life here, owing to the moisture in the air because of the river, was a little different from what I saw earlier. It appeared mostly still, like a pond, except for a few narrow streams that emanated at the edges.Īfter what I saw in the morning, I had become accustomed to looking at the forest floor. At the peak of summer, the river had very little water. The dry leaf litter gave way to the river almost immediately. Later in the noon, I headed on a path that took me towards the river bed. I’d read about the importance of leaf litter, on how it provides nutrients back to the soil, and keeps the cycle going by helping seeds germinate better. Though I heard a Crested Serpent-eagle a couple of times, a cat snake is the highest I got to see on this food chain. So having set my expectations accordingly, off I went.Ī Bronze Grass Skink catching some sunlight.Īnd I was wondering, that if there are such a large number of skinks and calotes around, shouldn’t there be something that predates on them too? Sure enough, a little later, I saw a snake moving quickly over the leaves, and then disappearing under them.Īnd then it struck me, if there are a number of snakes, shouldn’t there be other larger snakes which feed on them, such as the King Cobra, around? Must have been lurking somewhere, I thought. That there would be flying lizards in summer. I was told that it would be teeming with birdlife, even in summer. And like most JLR properties, this one boasts of abundant wildlife right within. Accomodation is in comfortable tents, along a path that leads to a plant nursery on one side, and a river on the other.
The cozy camp is nestled nicely in a deciduous and semi-evergreen patch of forest at the very beginning of the Someshwara Wildlife Sanctuary, along the Seethanadi river, hence the name. Udupi lies on the other side of the same highway, about 40 km away. The Seethanadi Nature Camp, in Hebri, is about an hour from Sringeri, after the Agumbe Ghats, in the Someshwara Wildlife Sanctuary. So when a plan to Sringeri was made this April, I decided to spend a day at Seethanadi. The only reason being, it gives me an opportunity to head out on my own little pilgrimage to one of the many jungles nearby. Everytime my parents plan a trip to a temple town near Bangalore, such as Sringeri, Dharmasthala or Horanadu, I insist on driving them there.