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Encounters With Elephants Exploring the Nagarhole National Park By Anil Mulchandani; Photography by Dinesh Shukla
A herd of elephants
T
market, the sugarcane market of Mandya and he Kaveri River Basin is one of the a number of other market towns. From the most exciting areas for wildlife viewroad, we admired ancient rock formations, ing—the Ranganathittu Bird Sanctusome of them really fascinating. Presently, ary, Nagarhole National Park and Bandiwe came to Srirangapatam, Tipu Sultan’s pur National Park in Karnataka, the Wayisland fort on the Kaveri River, and just after anad Wildlife Sanctuary in Kerala, and the that took the turn for the Ranganathittu Mudumalai National Park in Tamil Nadu, Bird Sanctuary, a cluster of islands in the are nourished by the Kaveri or its tributaries Kaveri River famous for the huge heronry creating habitats for a huge variety of mamthat forms here between June and October. mals, birds, reptiles and other wildlife forms. Ranganathittu was declared a Bird SancThe backwaters of the Kabini River, a tuary in 1940, making it perhaps South Intributary of the Kaveri, are especially rich dia’s oldest bird sanctuaries, and the famous with wildlife especially in summer when birdwatcher and author of field guides to the water level recedes to form rich grassy Indian birds, Salim Ali, was instrumental in meadows. The stretch of the Kabini flowing bringing attention to these islands as bird through Nagarhole National Park is extremehavens. ly productive for watching wildlife—a visit in the hot months of June and July can yield sightings of large herds of elephants and other ungulates making the most of the remaining fresh grass along the receding waters, and at times a tiger, leopard or sloth bear coming to the river’s edge for a drink. On a warm day in July we set out from Bangalore Airport for the Kabini reservoir. Once out of the congested areas of Bangalore, the highway took us past Chennapatnam where shops were selling wooden toys, a huge coconut Egret at nest, Ranganathittu Bird Sanctuary 52 | INDIA CURRENTS | June 2013
This sanctuary offers amazingly close views of storks, ibises and herons at most times of the year, and egrets in breeding plumage during the monsoon months. At the jetty where we hired a boat for our sanctuary tour, we were rewarded by the sight of hovering terns and kingfishers, occasionally diving to catch fish. From the jetty, the boatman rowed us out towards the islands for better bird sightings. At the first island we saw a flock of Asian openbill stork and at the next we saw painted storks. One of the highlights for me was an astonishingly close view of a black-crowned night heron which is not easily seen elsewhere because of its nocturnal habits. The trees on the islands were covered with nests
Cormorants, Kabini River