Kaggaladu, karnataka

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Kaggaladu

A guest post by my dear husband PC an avid bird watcher- We are a totally travel crazy family.. and u’ll see why..
 

 

After a peaceful 10 day holiday at Kumta and a trip to chitradurga thrown in, Shruti and myself started back to Bangalore from Belgaum. Reached Chitradurga  at 12 noon.  We thought instead of reaching Bangalore early it will be worthwhile to visit a place enroute. A quick Google pointed listed “Kaggaladu” a village near Tumkur as a bird sanctuary and home to painted stork, pelicans and herons.
I have the habit of remembering names by splitting into meaningful words – So told Shruti that we are going to “Kagga-Ladu = Black Laddoo” .
 
After  a quick lunch at “Hiriyur” proceeded further. We took a deviation from NH48 service road (just before Sira Town) as confirmed by Google maps and confirmed by local people. Destination was supposed to be 10 km from here. We travelled 10 kms away from the highway to reach Thogaragunte after which there was no proper road. The Google maps, GPRS, GPS all had got lost. It was showing destination further 16 km.
kaggaladu
 
After few minutes of wait in a deserted road, we got a person on TVS-50 who guided us to go back 2 kms to village Mustigarahalli gate and suggested we ask there. Here we got 3 contradicting routes to Kaggaladu and all 3 were mud roads. So we decided to take one of the routes and try our luck.
kaggaladu birds
 
Spotted some birds on the electric wire so decided to continue in the same road asking each person about Kaggaladu. We were asked to carry on in the road and ask for – the next village Bandakunte, Chikkanakote, some hatti, some halli and so on. In some places the road was missing. In some places the road was bisecting a mud house and the cow shed.
A occasional bird sighting –  pigeon, pied bushcat, robin, kept us busy with the clicks. The next village we were to ask the villagers the route again.  In the combinations of so many halli, hatti, kote, kunte we forgot the name of our destination.  Here I was surrounded by the curious villagers and I was not remembering where we were going.
Shruti suddenly told something like Black Laddoo – Ah !! I tried some words with Black and laddoos and finally got it right Kagga- Ladu.
In the quest to shoot some roller, bee eaters I ended up injuring my ankle. The catch of Bee eater (with a bee) was rewarding.
Finally we reached Kaggaladu. It took us more than 2 hours to reach the same.
So we asked the villagers where we can see the bird sanctuary.
They pointed 2 trees and said this is where the birds visit and stay. This year there is no water in lake and hence not a single heron, stork or pelican had visited !!!!!
kaggaladu town
 
These are the only  photos clicked in Kaggaladu. But the journey we took for 2 hours in the village roads was quite adventurous and worthwhile.
On way back we saw there was a main road directly to Sira and NH-48 highway – which was just 6 km instead of more than 20 km we had travelled. The direct road is not appearing—– in Google maps.
There is always some surprise when you take the Road Less Travelled !!!!
Started  back to Bangalore in full speed. On the way back was lucky to spot some beauty near the Sira Lake  – Egyptian vulture, Black winged stilt and some others.
Sira birds
 
 
The birds seen and photographed are :
Baya weaver, Eurasian collared dove, little brown dove, Jungle myna, Indian bushlark, Green bee eater,ashy crowned sparrow lark,oriental magpie robin, swallow, Black shoulder kite,Black kite, Egyptian vulture, Ibis, Black winged stilt, Herons, Egrets, Indian Roller, Babblers.
 
Got some interesting sunset photos.
truck crash sira sunset
sunsetview sira
sunset sira1
 
Finally  reached Bangalore after an interesting and rewarding trip.

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  1. oh wow!! wow!! Such lovely pictures… I love love how you’ve shared this on google maps… So for someone like me.. I can see and relate to the areas instantly..

    This is an awesome post… Makes me want to pack my bags NOW.. and go away for a while..

    I’m ever so envious .. you guys have such awesome places.. so close to you… Enjoy!!

  2. Shruti…Lovely pics clicked.I myself is bird lover,during my recent Munnar tripgot so many birds clicked .Loved it.

    I love the intereting fact remm word by breaking it.

  3. very interesting travelogue…i remember all those extempore/unplanned trips we made way back in 98-2000.

    the word splitting is peculiar to PC..he used to remember things like this in class 12..i have heard many of these..

    excellent snaps of the sunset,birds…

    try capturing the snap of Great Indian Bustard which is a rare..you can find in drylands and plains..

    one more interesting and difficult subject to photograph is Butterfly.. Try early morning when the sun has just rosen..may be 8-9 a.m. once we cross 9 a.m. they are very difficult to capture as they are very active unless you have plants/bushes where they can have nectar…

    when you visit THANE NEXT visit butterfly garden on the GHODBUNDER ROAD…

    Kudos to your Blog!!!..awaiting for more unplanned travelogues!!!!..bye

  4. @suresh – Thanks 🙂 Hopefully you’ll join us next year at Bangalore for some of our unplanned trips too 🙂
    @Haley – Thank you. Most our trips are thought on the spot .. we just pack up and leave.
    @Ashu – I loved the bird pics from ur trip to Munnar.
    @priya – It was lovely. thank you 🙂
    @patty – 🙂 I’ll try to add google maps to my travel tales. Thats a good suggestion. thanks