Bandipur
(12°03'N 76°07'E)
)
Nagarhole (11°05'N 76°05'E)
Bandipur
(12°03'N 76°07'E)
|
Nagarhole (11°05'N 76°05'E)
|
| Bandipur & Nagarhole National Parks | |||||
 Elephants at a Salt lick, Bandipur
My Trips :
All photos are taken during photo outing @ Bandipur
By the time I joined the group in Bandipur, I'd missed two outings..
I'd gone home to Kerala for Onam Holiday.. From there, went by Calicut-Mysore bus
and got down at Gundulpet, on Mysore-Ooty road. From there, Bandipur is
some 20km towards Ooty. Karnataka SRTC buses ply in that route.
Though I enjoyed the trip, The photo "outing" as such wasn't very useful.. since private vehicles
are not allowed for safari inside the forest.. and we couldn't get a
good van.. and we had to go in an old govt. van ..
the driver wouldn't turn off the engine to shoot, cos it's difficult to restart !
In Karnataka, the two attractive wildlife parks of Nagarhole and Bandipur, though separate entities, are part of a larger contiguous wildlife reserve, Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve, that includes the Mudumalai Sanctuary and Mukurthi NP in Tamil Nadu and the Wynad Reserve and Silent Valley NP in Kerala. It's India's first Biosphere reserve to get the international recognition. Both the parks are easily accessible from Mysore.
|
The 874.20 sq. km. Bandipur National Park, which is also a Tiger Reserve, with its open grassy woodland, lies to the south of the Kabini River while Nagarhole, 643.39 so. km. in area, to the north of the river, has taller and denser forests. A dam on the Kabini and its picturesque reservoir separate the two parks. In the dense moist deciduous forests of this area the upper canopy reaches heights of 30m and valuable hardwoods like teak and rosewood are also to be found here. Bandipur, lying in the shadow of the Western Ghats, is one of the finest habitats of the Asian elephant. Drained by the Moyar River, its open forest makes it easy for visitors to see the elephant and gaur in natural surroundings. 
At Nagarhole, too, there are excellent facilities for viewing wildlife and large groups of gaur, elephant, sambar, chital and even the occasional tiger or leopard are seen. Among other mammals are the muntjac, the tiny mouse deer, wild boar, pangolin, giant squirrel, slender loris, langurs and macaques. The Park has about 250 species of birds and the Malabar trogan, the Malabar Herd of elephants pied hornbill, the great black woodpecker, the Indian pitta and the green imperial pigeon are part of its avian variety. Lesser cats like the jungle cat, leopard cat and rusty spotted cat are also resident species.
|
||||
| FACT-SHEET from UNEP - World Conservation Monitoring Center: - Bandipur - Nagarhole |
