Birding in Varuna Lake, Mysore

On 26th Apr 2015 Myself (H K M Swamy), Sathisha M and Chethan M S planned to go to Varuna Lake back waters in early morning for bird watching. It was 6.30 am me and Chetu reached Sathi's house picked him and started towards lake. Varuna lake gets water not only from rain but also from Varuna channel from which there is enough water in the lake throughout the year. Sathi informed us the route which took us to the back side of the lake. As there was heavy rain the day before the surface was wet and we saw many birds resting in the water. I started to take photos of birds in my cam and sathi in his mobile. I saw 100s of Spot-billed ducks, Many Purple Swamphen, Cattle Egrets, Indian Pond Heron, Eurasian Coots and 2 White Throated Kingfisher.

White Throated Kingfisher

 Purple Swamphen

 Eurasian Coots

Sathi manage to take some good photos of lake beauty in his mobile camera

Varuna Lake, Mysore

Than we started to move to different place from the edge of the lake. As it was wet me and Sathi started walking and Chetu manage to get the bike. We reached a spot where there was a Painted Stork, there were many Spot-billed ducks, Little Egret, Greater painted-snipe and Purple Swamphen. As Chetu was wearing yellow shirt as soon as he came all birds started to fly, I said chetu that was because his shirt colour, than he removed his shirt for some time till I manage to take some snaps. Chetu had bought Shuttle (not sure why:D) so I told them to play and took some photos. We wanted to move further but there was no way to bike, Chetu took bike and left telling he would be in the other end of the lake. I spotted a Indian Grey Hornbill which went inside the bushes in a second so was not able to take a photo of it. As we started to walk we felt like we are going inside some forest hiking as it was covered with trees and bushes.

Cattle Egrets

Greater painted-snipe - Female

Little Egret

Greater painted-snipe - Male

Sathi & Chetu playing shuttle in Varuna Lake

Spot-billed ducks

Painted Stork

Varuna lake, Mysore

Than we spotted small group of birds on the tree and bird in the lake side. I took many snaps there and went further to the final spot. There I was very happy to spot Pied Kingfisher for the first but the sad thing was my battery was drained out, however i rubbed the battery and manage to take a snap which was not clear though.

Pied Kingfisher 

There too Sathi took some scenic photos which had came out very well. 

Varuna Lake

Varuna Lake Water Flower

We felt very sad that development of layouts around the lake was impacting the birds habitat and also beauty of the lake. That was end of the Birding day, Sathi said we will go to Lingabudi Lake next week and we were back to our homes.

In Search of Nishani Motte, Madekeri

 On 11th Nov 2012 we planned to go Nishani Motte. It was a peak in Madikeri. Sathisha had seen a article on Nishani Motte in local magazine Sudha. After many dropouts in our team it was only 5 of them Me(HKM Swamy), Sathisha, Suku, Pavan, Chetu were ready to trip with 3 pulsars. We thought of leaving early morning but as Sathisha had some work so he did double shift & left Bangalore early morning and reached mysore at 10 AM.  Me, Suku, & Pavan started picked Chetu from his house than picked   Sathisha from bus stand and started our ride from hunsur road. we reached hunsur at 11 AM. had tiffen there and started to search the route, Nishani Motte was a new place & no one was aware of the route. We searched in net, Google maps  all but no where there was a route to it. Also we inquired with one of our friend Machaiah as his native was coorg but even he was not aware of the place. There was no way in wasting time in search of it as it was already 11:30 AM & thought we will go Madikeri and inquire people regarding that. We reached Madikeri at 1:30 PM and asked regarding the route as usual many were not aware of the place at last a person told us to go towards tadiyadamol which we had already been last time for trek. After we traveled 25 kms we reach Napoklu at 2.30 PM. We again inquired the people over there but it was of no use. Than we started feeling that we may be in the wrong route and I started to search net at last we found one of the Blog where we saw that starting point to trek Nishani Motte was Galeebedu. The place was pointing towards northwest to Madikeri but we had travelled towards south 25 kms. It was time and had a thought to return mysore. But  Sathisha(team lead ;-)) said we will go to Nishani Motte. We return back to Madikeri and inquired people regarding Galeebedu and started towards Galeebedu. We travelled 10 km and at last we manage to find the place Galeebedu at 4 PM and we inquired people over there. They informed us that u people have to Park your vehicle and have to trek more than 2 kms to reach the peak and it may be 8pm by the time you come back also there will be leaches. we were not bothered about leaches but  Suku was not well and also there was no safety for our bikes. The people also suggested that there is a direct vehicle route from Madikeri to the peak. So we decided we will give a last try took details regarding the way and started back to Madikeri. We reached raja seat  went towards stone hill. After reaching stone hill it was dead end for tar road and we started in mud road hoping tat we will get the peak in the end after an 3 kms of mud road we had a surprise to see our road joining a concrete road. We saw a police canter on the way stopped him and inquired to confirm that are we in correct route. We were happy to hear tat we were right to heading towards Nishani Motte. That concrete road was to new resort Taj's Vivanta. We reached Vivanta and we were stopped by the guards we said we going to Nishani Motte they said it's after Vivanta but today we are not leaving any one to cross Vivanta as Governor of Karnataka is about to come and stay for two days there. Oops our dream to see Nishani Motte started to vanish from our minds. We said the guards the trouble we faced to reach here and surprisingly a guard said to silently go straight with out turning any where. We started moving regoursly and faced a troop of police standing middle of the road with a person in front of them his dress looked like he was SP of coorg. Our heart started beating louder that they may stop us as every one were staring at us. As soon as we approached them they gave us way in middle and we crossed them silently. I felt like a king for a second as the army were welcoming me. After series of all the things we got a dead end for our bikes but we did't see any peak there. We saw a trek path there and went ahead and followed the path after trekking for nearly a kilometer we got the peak at around 5:30 PM which is none other other than Nisani Motte:). We plannedto stay overnight but was not possible so took some snaps enjoyed the nature for an hour and return back to mysore at 10 PM.

Correct Route to Nishani Motte

Madekeri -> RajaSeat -> towards Galibeedu 4 kms -> take left at Race course road -> Go straight for 4-5 kms toVivanta -> Treak 1km to the Peak Nishani Motte

Below is the our route captured by Google Location history: