South India - Kerala, February 2012

Hi to all,
yesterday I returned from the sunny hills of the Idukki district, Kerala (around 800m above sea level).
The first (my favourit) pictures are ready for sharing allready and will give you a nice overview for now (of course I'll add a few things when I'm done )
The wheater was great (specially if you come from about -10° to -15°) very sunny, over 30° at noon, though quite cool and foggy nights sometimes and it was very dry.
We stayed near the small town Pothupara in the middle of beautiful tea plantations, in which I fell in love immediately





morning


We had great habitats around us. Most locals "do not care" about the non unfixed routes and they have lots of undergrowth on their sides, so there are lots of animals but it is hard to follow when they want to escape. Following some advices of the people around us, we combed the area to different day-/nighttimes and were rewarded with some nice creatures





Bufo melanostictus


Calotes sp. ?







same diving...


After one week (and some failures) we got the first snake in front of our lenses!
A beautiful indian rat snake Ptyas mucosa, about 2meters in lenght.





getting grumpy after some shots


cardamom field (we often went there at night, searching insects and spiders)


Heteropoda sp. (venatoria ?)


blue mormon Princeps polymnestor


Cyclosa bifida I think


Dipluridae (maybe Indothele sp. ???)


Another nice discovery (in a whole under stairs into a house) Beddome's keelback Amphiesma beddomei (~60cm)...





On the last day, few houres befor we had to leave to the airport it started raining for a while and in the heavy fog we've been lucky to find two montane trinket snake
Coelognathus helena monticollaris ~1meter and the other one a bit smaller, maybe 70cm.
wish i would have had a natural background, but it was dark, very foggy, so it was easier in this little time...



... but we had fun of course





Trying to summarize: I'm overwhelmed with wonderful impressions from this whole journey, not only herping & landscape, the friendly people in this small town, their mentality and kindness and the huge contrasts in this country as well, not to mention the differences to European countries...
Finally, I'd love to see this place again (in a more reptile-friendly season )

me after the rain, on our last day


regards,
Markus

interesting trip, hope to see more of your trip, by the way in those tea plantations did you found any pit viper??

Hello Markus,

thank you very much for letting us participate (at least partially).

Looking forward to some additions,

Rainer

Gustav Eloy wrote:

interesting trip, hope to see more of your trip, by the way in those tea plantations did you found any pit viper??

Despite strenuous search, we have found no venomous snakes and only few reptiles in whole, considering the biodiversity of the area. I totally enjoyed the trip, so I can not complain, but of course it would have been nice seeing at least one cobra or pit viper
A pity that the rain started in our last hours and thats what making me damn curious to go there again in a more moist season.

I'll add are some pictures of the Periyar Wildlife Sanctuary near Kumily (where we enjoyed a boat trip and a walk through the forrest), in a few days when I'm done with selecting and editing

regards

As I promised, some additional pictures of the Periyar Wildlife Sanctuary:
I joined a tour through the forrest in the morning. (Guided tours are the only possibility to leave the area around the tourist centre...)
At first it was cool and foggy, but around 9 am it became quite hot and very dry...
I really enjoyed the tour, although we haven't seen any snake, it was nice to visit their habitat (T. malabaricus should be quite common, according to the stories of the guide)






mouse deer, (Moschiola indica ?)




Araneidae


hard to get nice pictures of (fast) moving animals in the trees but I got some presentable
malabar giant squirrel (Ratufa indica)






Nilgiri langur (Trachypithecus johnii) i think








indian elephants




snackbar


bonnet macaque (Macaca radiata) around the snackbar and tourist centre






boat tour in the early afternoon
















enjoy

regards
Markus

Awesome trip!
Stunning photos!

That last elephant looks very skinny, must of been an old one.