Photo Essay – Birds of Kanha National Park

Kanha National Park is best known for its tiger population and the tiger sightings. But on my trip I discovered that it’s also a bird watcher’s and a photographers paradise. We had numerous sightings of some beautiful birds (both the common and the not so common) but I was able to capture just a few through the lens of my camera. And sharing the ones caught with you below –

Shikra Bird – These are hunting birds that prey on other birds. The males have a red iris while the females have a yellow iris and they can hunt birds as large as themselves.

Shikra Bird, Male with a red iris

Photo Essay – Riding through the snow in a Swiss train

Our last day in Switzerland was a wonderful surprise with the first snowfall of the season in Zermatt and its surrounding areas. We were leaving Zermatt for Zurich that day and experienced our first snowfall in Zermatt that morning. We then had a beautiful train ride back wherein we saw the entire landscape once again turning white, trees laden with snow and various moods of snow fall – from a gentle fall to heavy lashes. This train ride was also special as when we had arrived in Zermatt we had seen the same area as green (Read – A Scenic Alpine train journey to Zermatt) and its transformation, on the ride back, was like being lucky to be able to witness summer and winter in a single trip.

And sharing my pics of some of these stunning sights below –

1. Just in a matter of hours, we were transported into Snow Queen’s Snow kingdom with layers of snow covering everything in its sight.

Snow covered trees and ground

Flying around Interlaken on Two Wheels

Just like a dream, I was recently invited by Swiss Tourism, Maison de Voyage and Rock-On Holidays by Thomas Cook India to experience Switzerland in a unique way. While enough has been said and written about the romantic / family vacations of Switzerland our idea was to leave out all the famous / touristy activities and instead  explore this country through a new lens i.e.  through the eyes and activities of a single budget traveler. Hence our itinerary included all kinds of adventure sports, walks and many new experiences that people normally don’t associate with Switzerland.

Interlaken and Unterseen with the river as boundary

Weekly Photo Challenge – Layers

This week’s weekly photo challenge is “Layers” and my image for the same is this flower, whose name I earlier didn’t know. But after this post went live last night, I received numerous responses from my blogging world friends who identified this flower for me, and it’s the Passiflora – the Blue Passion Fruit flower. I would like to thank everyone who commented on this post and helped me identify this flower. 🙂 Super thanks everyone.

I saw this flower on one of the 5 islands of Cinque Terre in Italy and instantly loved its colors and numerous layers. This was growing like a creeper all around these islands, but surprisingly I dint see them anywhere else in Italy (i.e. wherever I traveled).

Passiflora or the passion fruit flower 🙂

The Insectivorous Flowers of Kaas

My visit to Kaas had everything that a good trip should have – I saw a surreal land, some beautiful and unique flowers, ticked another to do place from my list, met some amazing people and saw my first 2 varieties of insectivorous flowers. As a kid I had always read about insectivorous flowers but had never seen one and was always fascinated by them. In fact when I finally did see them in Kaas, I just couldn’t believe that these seemingly innocent flowers can actually trap an insect and eat it. Since seeing these flowers was an important part of  my list, I kept this topic for my last post on Kaas.

Utricularia / Seeta’s Tears, Kaas

Photo Essay – 10 colors and flowers of Kaas

Its Diwali time and for me somehow Diwali celebrations are always associated with colors – colorful clothes, crackers, lights, decorations, rangoli, sweets, etc etc. There is a riot of colors in pretty much everything around and as far as the eye can see. Though I missed taking my camera out this year to capture the Diwali celebrations (have been busy with quite a few things of late), I still wanted to post something as colorful on the blog today. And then I thought to myself, what better way to post on colors than 10 different flowers of Kaas in 10 different colors and shades. So do read on and share some of the colors of Kaas via its unique flowers.

• Elephant’s Trunk – This flower has 2  pinkish violet vertical petals, two horizontal petals and one moon shaped one in the centre that s rolled to form a tunnel. As an insect lands on the central petal, its weight draws out trunk like organ from the tunnel and this organ sprays pollen all over the insect.

Elephant’s Trunk, Kaas

A Quick Travel Guide for planning a trip to Kaas, Satara

Kaas is Western’s Ghat’s smaller and cheat’s answer to visit and experience a Valley of Flowers. There are no arduous treks or long journeys involved and all you need to do is just undertake a long drive.  While I haven’t seen the actual Valley of Flowers in Uttaranchal, I got a chance to visit Kaas in September this year and loved every thing about this beautiful plateau.  Kaas comes alive during monsoons with numerous flowers flowering in a riot of colors, such that it gives an impression of being amidst multi colored bands. There are all kinds of flowers here, including some endemic, some rare and some insectivorous too. Along with flowers, there are other smaller life forms that are found around here such as birds, bees, beetles, etc. Overall a must visit for every nature lover.

Colors of Kaas

The Hostage Taking Flower – Ceropegia

Nature never ceases to amaze me. It is everything – imaginative, creative, adaptable, beautiful, unique but most of all it’s always full of surprises. Whenever I think I have seen the best of it, it springs another amazing sight at me. The latest was the hostage taking flowers of Ceropegia in Kaas. As a botany student in school, I had learnt about numerous ways that plants employ for pollination, with the main method being via pollinating agents. And the best pollinating agents are insects. Hence it’s not surprising that various plants have devised various techniques to attract these insects through – color, scent, stench and designs. But the hostage taking flowers are unique. These flowers take insects as hostage and only release them once pollination and fertilization is complete.

Ceropegia vincaefolia, Kaas

Thoseghar Falls in Satara, Maharashtra

Monsoon season in India provides everyone respite from the blistering heat and the entire landscape a much-needed makeover.  And for a very limited time frame, certain parts of Western India transform into a lush green landscape with beautiful azure lakes and seasonal waterfalls bursting forth through the hills.

We visited Satara in the monsoon season and saw a similar seasonal fall, called the Thoseghar waterfall. This Fall is the most famous in this area and is about a 20 Km drive from the Satara city. Set amidst a picturesque landscape of paddy fields and hills all around, it’s actually quite a beautiful sight.

The beautiful tree lined walkway to the Falls

Myriad colors of Kaas

Kaas – Ever since I had heard about this smaller version valley of flowers closer to home, I had wanted to visit it. This is a stunning landscape, a macro photographers delight, a botanist’s mecca, a nature enthusiast’s paradise and much more. As I was day dreaming about this place yet again, an email landed in my mail box, saying that the Jungle Lore was taking a travel group there. Well, I certainly did not need to be told twice and quickly caught the Jungle Lore bus embarking towards Kaas.