Ranganathittu Bird Sanctuary

Phew! Finally, I get to this post. I have been meaning to update my blog and, especially, put down my list of birds sighted at RBS for ages.

Ranganathittu is very accessible from Mysore. You could drive there, but we car-less folks took a city bus from the Mysore bus stand and it takes you via the city, adjacent farm land and right outside the gates of the sanctuary. The river Kaveri meanders through this area. Like all historic and significant tourist spots in Karnataka (and perhaps the whole country, I don't know yet), this place is also plastic-free, but surprisingly, does indeed appear to be so (the other place in/near Mysore that's supposed to be plastic-free are the Chamundi Hills, but it's not uncommon to see a bunch of plastic bags and bottles lying right underneath the very sign that prohibits their presence). This part of the world is also very close to the Krishna Raja Sagara (KRS) Dam, so a common sight is of small canals cutting through green fields. Inside one of these canals, right by the entrance of the sanctuary, is a giant statue of Shiva meditating on a stone with his thick black locks touching the water. Some people canoe to the statue every day and leave flowers and fruit offerings. It's really quite a nice sight.

From the park entrance, you have to walk about a kilometer or so before coming to the parking lot and the actual park. This kilometer is beautiful to walk through, tree-lined, with very picturesque little babbling brooks running alongside the road. Many birds, flowers and insects. Kids enjoyed themselves very much. Only thing that spoils the experience are the cars racing through that kilometer, all, for some reason, in a great hurry to get to the parking lot. Slow down, folks! You're missing all the good bits by rushing about!

So, my sincere recommendation: ditch the cars at the main road and walk down.

In large trees, fairly high up from the ground, we saw golden orioles, grey hornbills, rose-ringed parakeets and red whiskered bulbuls

Golden oriole, seen in a tree by the bus stop
near a small village on the way to RBS. What a beauty, no?

A family of red-whiskered bulbuls were seen within RBS, in trees by the side of a small pond

Purple rumped sunbird

In small trees, we saw my favorite bird, the purple-rumped sunbird.

On the ground, by a marshy enclave, right as soon as you pass the parking lot, is the home of the yellow wagtail. And true to his name, he wags his tail as he busily flits from one reed to another.

Yellow wagtail. Friendly fellow, not at all put off by us plonking ourselves down a few feet from him and staring at his antics.

You know what else RBS is also famous for?

Far away rocks, nothing particularly interesting....

Check out the pelican nests on top of the trees

Then you go closer and...do the rocks look different now?!

 Crocodiles! These are Magar types and not terribly active. With a good pair of binoculars, you can even see their long canines stick out of their mouths as they sun themselves on the rocks within the lake. These crocs are native to this region and completely wild. Imagine, even hundreds or thousands of years ago, they were probably sunning themselves on these very same rocks!

RBS is famous for little islands nestled within a large lake. There are boat rides available and for a little bit of extra money, the boater will row in between the many islands, rather than just around the periphery. None of the boats are motored and the splish-splash of the oars forms a relaxing background sound to the scenery.

A nuzzling nestling couple.

The boat ride, for me, really highlighted the truth of the old adage "Birds of a feather flock together". Colonies of each species really do stick to each other, and different species clearly occupy different niches, even on a single tree!

More pelicans hanging out

Cormorants pose together

It's difficult to take particularly good pictures of bird colonies with an iPhone, especially if one is on a rocking boat. Some of the other birds we saw, but I couldn't take good pictures of, were:

Night heron (www.pbase.com)

White ibis

Large and little cormorants, snake bird (dead, draped over a branch like a black shroud), river terns, spoonbills, spotted pelicans, open billed stork, painted storks (in flight, not in colonies) were some of the other birds we saw either nesting in or flying near the islands.

I wonder why so many birds that live close by water bodies are usually white and black. Must be for camouflage... though, why not muddy brown or dirty green? Perhaps there are such birds and I just don't know about them. This question reminds me of the paddy bird, which I came across in Cubbon Park many weeks ago.

Indian pond heron (paddy bird). Muddy white, it tends to fade into the background.

Speaking of birds that are hard to spot, we think we saw the bittern. Certainly the terrain was typical of its favored haunts, that is, reedy shores. It was all the way on the island on the other side of the crocs sunning themselves in one of the pictures above. It was completely motionless, and indeed, I couldn't spot it at all until Ram pointed it out to me.

We also saw this guy close up while boating back towards the mainland:


We lunched at the park cafeteria (decent dosas, but really awful chutney); kids chased a few monkeys around and we headed back by around 3pm. Back along the scenic kilometer! And this time, we stumbled across a true treat.

On a tree in what seemed like a sugarcane field, Ram thought he spotted some hornbills. So he walked into the field and realized that it was actually a patch of land on a hill, surrounded by the Cavery on two sides.  Immediately, what appeared to be a terrain of flat lands and high trees was transformed into one which supported water-loving birds too! A truly marvelous and diverse niche! Once we walked in, we spotted an immense number of birds, amazingly spectacular, brilliantly colored.

The view of the field from the road. Looks fairly ordinary, no?

Bordering the field on one side was the river, home to many species of bee-eaters, kingfishers, weaver birds and muniyas.

Bordering the field on another side was this little lagoon. Check out the weaver bird nests!

The blue tailed bee-eater

The little green bee-eater. We saw both species of bee-eaters side-by side on a wire above the river.

Tricolored muniya

We also saw three species of kingfishers: the pied, little blue and white breasted.

White breasted kingfisher. Pic from www.burneysbirdblog.org

Little blue kingfisher. Pic from Wiki

Pied kingfisher. Wiki pic

So, to end, here's a list of birds we saw at Ranganathittu:

Grey hornbills

Purple rumped sunbird

Red wattled lapwing

Yellow wagtail

Red whiskered bulbul

Golden oriole

Brahminy kites

Indian shag (possibly)

Yellow wagtail

Pied wagtail

Rose ringed parakeets

Heard barbets - not spotted 

Drongo

Bittern (which species?)

Pied wagtail

White Ibis

Night heron

Large cormorant

Little cormorant

Darter (snake bird)

River tern

Spoonbill 

Spot billed Pelicans

Painted stork in flight (?). None seen in colonies

Open billed stork

Pied kingfisher

Little green bee-eater

blue tailed bee-eater

Baya (non breeding plumage) Weaver bird + nests

Tricolored Munia

Little blue Kingfisher

White breasted kingfisher

Tickell's blue flycatcher

Fan tailed flycatcher