Sunday, April 17, 2011

Ragihalli & Bannerghatta National Park

After our first photography trek to Ranganthittu, harsha was eager to capture some more birds.
We heard about ragihalli from the great birding boys Vaibhav & Sushil (member of Bangalore – People & Place Blog )
This time Ravi, joined our bandwagon...

We were First timers for this place and had no proper clue about the location.

We started around 5:45 AM from our house, Through Nice road, it just took 25 Min for us to reach the main road where we had to take a turn to ragihalli.
We stopped nearby a small hotel to have a hot sip of coffee and continued again to our destination.

As per our information we went 5 km ahead and reached ragihalli,
BUT NO SIGN OF BIRDS .....

We crossed one more village,
STILL NO SIGN OF BIRDS.....

May be, we had thought birding is so easy as we did it in Ranganathittu...
Never, Along with the equipments,  It requires greatest ability of human being..
That is Patience

One more reason for non visibility of birds was the climate, It was more cloudy.. (birds might be still asleep)

Finally we stopped @ a place of complete silence and came out of the car. Now, we noticed couple of birds coming out to show us their face..


Before Marriage
After Marriage
After few shots.. and no more birds on the sight. We were unhappy with ragihalli and we thought of visiting bannerghatta national park for a safari.

Since we were at the border of the village , we took another route through forest area and reached Anekal route.., While coming back to bannerghatta, we had to come via same main road, where we had to take turn for ragihalli.

This time, Harsha's soul tempted again to check if any birds have woken up from their sleep.
We started another lap to ragihalli, This time we found some more winged angels..





after some time we came back to main road, had nice breakfast & headed towards bannerghatta.

As soon as we reached the park, we jumped in for a safari, which was kind of mediocre experience for the animal shots.
  • Wild Safari


Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Savandurga Surge (13 Feb 2011)


Every rock in savandurga has its own story.
Firstly, i am very much thankful for my friends who re-scheduled the schedule from saturday to Sunday only for me.

Participants :
  1. Srikanth, 
  2. Sandeep, 
  3. Yashdeep Sant, 
  4. Latesh Pawar & 
  5. Yoga narasimha / Swamiji / Sriswamiji .. 
  6. < Still not yet met >
Destination : SAVANDURGA PEAK
Reason : In search of  "a better place to fall away from"
Buzzing Horns in Traffic
Tension from all corner
Crazy & Noisy crowds
Work pressure cookers
And Many more.( You too know the reasons )

We said a big bye to Bangalore at 9:00 AM and
Hello to Savandurga around 10:30 AM

In middle, we stopped at Big banyan tree (for breakfast) and near a lake on the way to savandurga (for photo-shoot)
Lake on the Way to savandurga
From Savandurga Base, we started our climbing session after drinking tender coconuts.
As we climbed 15 - 20 % of the peak, Our ancestors within us started showing their stunts..and results are below.
This is the time, we met our 6th participant "Kishor Jagirdar"
A stranger who became friend & participant,  
"because of frequency match".
Kishor was here with his troop of students & since he was slow, he had advised his students to not wait for him..

We continued with chatters that mattered all the way along with the new participant.
Except me & swamiji , others started climbing the peak in hard way...by rapling on a steep rock.
(We did not take chance, Since we had hard earned DSLR's with us..)
One of the old fort on top of hill
Kishor's team
We were about to reach our destination (Just 20 min Away).. Again second part of ancestor show-up started
Finally we reached our destination.
Mantap on top of hill
Basavanna, Watching from top
Panorama of hill down view from top.
And i completed my task of breaking a rock.into two pieces..
Finally, Broke the rock apart.
After a quick snack session, we headed back to base of peak by following our shadows.
From Left : Sandeep (me), Swamiji, Latesh, Srikanth, Kishor & Yashdeep

After reaching base..
Exchanged the end note with our new companion and headed back to Bangalore with a hope of coming back again with super schedule of night trek.
On the way SUN gave us a warm & colorful  closing of cheerful trek.



PICTURES : https://picasaweb.google.com/kbsandeep.it/Savandurga#

Srikanth's PHOTOS & BLOG

Friday, April 1, 2011

Ranganthittu Fashion Week (5th Feb 2011)



It was pitch dark morning session,
When a Magnificent meroon XYLO horned in front of the gate.


It was Harsha,
As discussed a day before, we were all set to visit the show.


My camera (1000D) was fully charged and happy with its new companion (Canon 55-250 lens).


Harsha was all set with his new & powerful setup of 
( 60D + 18-135 + 100-400 + Wide Angle lenses ) and was ready to venture into power shoot.


We left Bangalore around 5:00 AM from Mysore road and reached Cafe Coffee Day near channapattana @ 6:00 AM.


 
We decided to take some rich coffee and also started to warmup our camera’s by shooting the harmonious ambiance of cafĂ© coffee day & morning raga of the bleeding blue sky…


We departed from CCD @ 6:30 AM and lead towards Ranganthittu




 At 6:55 AM  we & our camera’s were energised by the ace power source of the universe from which whole world gets its energy. THE SUN
SUN - The Ace Power Source














After 10 – 15 Min of energized session, we started again and reached Ranganthittu @ 8:30 AM.
We were the 2nd visitor for that place and 1st one to board the boat.
Since we needed enough turning and trialing space arround our camera.. we had to take a special boat service (only for 2) which was 3 times much costliear than the General crowded service.



Add caption




Croc Croc

The Team


Watch me in below photos







This one hour, We felt like we were in Kashmir,  and watching a fashion show around the lake.
Co lour of a Crow

Lotus

The Boat

Harsha in Action

Reflection

Squirrel in limelight

Super Spider

after the ramp show, we had a wonderful breakfast and left back to Bangalore around 10:15 AM with the hope of visiting again.
Noon 12:30 PM, wonderful feast was waiting for us in my home.


Picasa Album 
https://picasaweb.google.com/kbsandeep.it/Ranganthittu?feat=directlink