On any day in well-wooded parts of southern India you can reasonably expect to see kingfishers, more than once.
They do not only eat fish.
Accordingly, trees overlooking ponds, lakes and rivers are not their only favoured places.
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Today’s post is the first of several to feature a species that any wildlife-seeking visitor to south India’s Western Ghats can reasonably expect to see, easily – probably, often.
Bonnet macacques are endemic to this region.
Until last year these very sociable forest-dwellers enjoyed a “least concern” conservation status.
Their numbers are currently declining, and in 2022 the IUCN reclassified their status as “vulnerable”.
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Not all of India’s spectacular/audacious/dangerous mountain roads are Himalayan.
There are several “jaw-droppers” that grant relatively easy road access to “hill stations” in the Western Ghats.
The photo was taken from circa one third of the way up the road to Valparai, in Tamil Nadu.
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Australian floggers and repairers of cars and tires like to brand their enterprises with the name of a “legendary” racing driver or football “hero”, and/or to present their sales-simians as “great great guys”, and/or or present their proprietor as an “icon” of trustworthiness.
If any were to consider entering the automotive “game” in south India, they should be advised that the untoppable, “ultra premium”/ “iconic” brand name is already taken….
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Coonoor (in Tamil Nadu’s northwest) is the second largest town in the Nilgiri Hills, which are part of India’s Western Ghats.
At 1,850 metres – more than 6,000 feet – this attractive town sits at a higher altitude than does any Australian settlement, ski villages included.
Coonoor was the one Western Ghats location where we stayed “in town”, I took the photo from the road in front of our hotel at 6.59 am on 02 March 2023.
Can you notice anything “dead wrong”, environmentally speaking?
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Just one week ago we were enjoying our final early morning safari in Karnataka’s Nagarhole Tiger Reserve, before a long drive to Bengalaru (formerly Bangalore) and our longer-again, two-flights journey home.
To an Australian visitor, what you can see above is an utterly amazing, very “exotic” sight.
To a local person who is very familiar with this national park, it is a perfectly ordinary circumstance.
Such an “amazing”/“commonplace” duality is a tag that applies to a great many things in India…and Australia too.
(try to imagine how “utterly unlikely” an emu, a galah, a kangaroo, or a blooming kangaroo paw must look to someone who has never before encountered any of them)
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You are looking at a member of the genus Trichosanthes, blooming in one of south India’s Sholas – high altitude forests which “punctuate” cooler, wetter parts of the Western Ghats.
Circa 2000 metres above sea level, this vine was discreetly thriving in a very small, very special national park.
Eventually, Kerala’s Pampadum Shola National Park will have its own multi-image post.
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Delightfully perky as is its “post-punk” crest, an adult male Indian flycatcher’s signature feature is the prodigious length of its “tail”/tail feathers.
Evidence suggests that here, size does matter: apparently, individuals with longer tail feathers enjoy greater breeding success.
Generally, extravagant tail feathers are a feature of promiscuous species, but the usually-monogamous Indian paradise flycatcher is a spectacular exception to this “rule”.
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As you can see, India’s wild boar and spotted deer (aka “chital” or “axis deer”) are acutely aware that they rate highly on the list of tigers’ “preferred” prey!
The full list of tigers’ prey is long and sometimes-surprising; it ranges from termites to baby elephants.
read moreWingless flight, Nagarhole Tiger Reserve (#3 in series of south India single-image teasers)
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In many respects, India’s south-westernmost state – Kerala – is India’s “best”.
By area, Kerala is just 57% the size of Tasmania.
By population, it exceeds Tasmania circa sixty times over; the entire population of Australia is less than 75% of Kerala’s.
Kerala includes both the lowest place in all of India and its highest point, south of the Himalayas.
Collectively, Kerala’s citizens are much more diverse, healthier, and more highly educated than are “average” Indians.
Keralans also eat some of the world’s most delicious food.
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