What a life!

Nature truly is magnificent. And this is embodied by the plethora of flora, fauna and foliage that makes the wilderness simply amazing.

I feel that I have been truly lucky to have experienced a part of such a reality, that sadly us humans are destroying mindlessly and may not last for ever unless we do make an effort (however little) to support its conservation.

Many thanks to Karthik Ramachandran (do vis

it his

blog: http://conservationofwildlife.blogspot.com/2008/10/small-blue-king.html), with whom I had

embarked on this magical journey.

A lovely night drive brought us to Theni and then Khambam on the Tamil Nadu border, where we

got our first glimpse of nature's bounty...

The pictures I had taken early in the day say it all.

It was here that we also spotted the first set of birds, but the light was not so great as to get a good quality picture.

Having had some lovely tea, we moved up into the Western Ghats and oh boy...what a wondrous moment... totally misty and magical.

It was so ethereal, it was akin to stepping into a different place all together after the dry plains!

And as it were, it turns out that I have all the amateur beginner's luck! We in the trip ended up spotting some amazing birds and animals, which most people normally do not get to see like the grey hornbill and the nilgiri martens.

Continuing on, we finally reached our destination - Periyar (Thekkady) where we were to go deep into the forest. At this point itself, I managed to actually capture an Indian wagtail (as the nomenclature goes, the bird just keeps wagging its damn tail! all the time).

Coming across Bison/Gaur (wild buffalo), Sambar deer, elephants, boars at close quarters while trekking through the forest was an experience that I certainly do have some difficulty in