Dating the Long-billed Vultures

My cousin was in town and I had to take him around, outside the city traffic. So, I decided a round trip along Mysore road. A working day, with an unexpected opportunity to take a cousin outside, a good enough reason for me to exercise my privileged leave. Is there a better way to start a day than watching the majestic, but highly endangered Long-billed Vultures (Gyps indicus)?

We left early in the morning to reach the base of Ramanaram hills at 7:30 in the morning. On the way, Srik SMS'd me teasing I am enjoying the festival in the name of some personal work. I didn't realise what he was talking about. Now before writing this blog, GOOGLE page told me that it is Valentine's Day today! I am feeling happy that I spent the day dating the beloved vultures. Dating the other form of bird would have put a hole in my pocket :-D

Anyway I was not very serious about watching all birds that stumble my way. My cousin would have got upset, had I done that. So, I mostly limited myself to the vultures. I thought of using this opportunity to show the power of Digiscoping. This is what I ended up with.

The left frame was taken using just Nikon Coolpix 8400, zoomed at its 3.5x optical. Small speck right at the middle of the slope, with the sky in the backdrop, in the left-hand frame is the bird. Then, retaining the settings, the camera was placed on Digital-Camera-Base against the 30x eyepiece of my spotting scope. The result is the frame on the right side.

(Click on the picture above to see the enlarged image)

Then, we climbed up the "Ramadevara Betta" hillock to visit the temple of Sri Rama. It was a good climb with 390 steps to the temple. We further clibmed to the top of the hillock. A poster in the temple said that a demon name "kAkAsura" (kaka - means crow in Kannada) molested Sitadevi (Rama's wife) during their visit to this place. Rama plucked a blade of grass and threw it at the demon, which turned into "rAma-bANa", making kAkAsura eventually submit to him. Rama forgave him after damaging one of his eyes, and warning him not to be seen around the hillock again. That's a . But, to our surprise, we did not see any crows around the hillock, although the place has been WELL littered.


Here is the image of SriRama, with Sita and Lakshmana:


The next place to visit was the temple of Sri Aprameya swamy and "AmbegAlu Krishna" at "doDDa-maLooru", a couple of kilometres after Channapattana. I liked this place because of two reasons:
1. The temple is very nicely built, although it is not a sculptural marvel. The idol of Krishna on his all four limbs is really beautiful.
2. Historians say that Purandara Dasa visited this temple during his time and composed the famous "ಜಗದೋಧ್ಧಾರನ ಆಡಿಸಿದಳೆಶೋದೆ" at this temple. The song mentions the name "apramEya". It is just a praise on the lord Krishna, but composed really well and put to a very good tune.

ಜಗದೋಧ್ಧಾರನ ಆಡಿಸಿದಳೆಶೋದೆ |
ಜಗದೋಧ್ಧಾರನ ಮಗನೆಂದು ತಿಳಿಯುತಾ | ಸುಗುಣಾಂತರಂಗನ ಆಡಿಸಿದಳೆಶೋದೆ ||
ಅಣೋರಣೀಯನ ಮಹತೋ ಮಹೀಯನ | ಅಪ್ರಮೇಯನ ಆಡಿಸಿದಳೆಶೋದೆ ||
ಪರಮಪುರುಷನ ಪರವಾಸುದೇವನ| ಪುರಂದರ ವಿಠಲನ ಆಡಿಸಿದಳೆಶೋದೆ ||

With the beautiful tune, one can really imagine Yashoda playing with Krishna.

After receiving delicious sweek pongal, puLiyOgare (tamarind rice) and curd rice, we left to Kamath Lokaruchi for lunch and spent some time in Janapada Loka. Then returned home after visiting a couple of nurseries (Dhanvantari vana near Bangalore University campus and Reddy Farm in Rajarajeshwari nagar). My cousin bought saplings of "Bilva patre", "Anjura" (European Fig), "kari-lakki", "seedless dALimbe", etc.

Totally, a day well spent - away from day's work ;o)