Ooty – Udhagamandalam

 

 

 

 

Ooty is the district capital of Nilgiri, Tamilnadu. I know everyone knows about it , So will  jump to why I visited & wrote about it.

Distance: Approx 265Kms from Bangalore.

Route I took: Bangalore > Mysore > Nanjangud > Bandipur > Masingudi > Ooty.

Why I went : Bird Photography 🙂 (especially the flycatchers).

Best Season: December to March.

Places i visited : Botanical Gardens & Doddabetta.

Botanical Gardens:  22 acres of well maintained greenery hosts an impressive count of birds & its not even 10% of land area compared to Lalbagh, Bangalore.

 

Velvet Fronted Nuthatch

Nilgiri Flycatcher – Male

Nilgiri Flycatcher – Female

Grey Headed Canary Flycatcher

Oriental Magpie Robin

Black & Orange Flycatcher

Black & Orange Flycatcher

Great tit with nesting material

Doddabetta: Its the highest place in Nilgiris & 10 kms from ooty(place where you can photography Nilgiri wood pigeon, Nilgiri Laughing thrush).

Doddabetta has a check post.

Arrive doddabetta as early as 7:00am, leave behind your vehicle near the forest entry gate with the driver & start walking .

 Its a trek on road for about 2.5kms with lush green & many surprises, who knows u may see a leopard 😉 .

As you walk nearly 1.5km the road splits in “Y” shape, This is the place I found the Niligiri Wood Pigeon, if not here you can always find it near parking lot on the top of the hill.

Nilgiri Wood Pigeon

Red Whiskered Bulbul

Oriental White Eye on a wild tobacco flower

Malabar Giant Squirel

It was a two day schedule & Doddabatta was on the second day. Usually after 9:30am it will be crowded by noisy tourists & you could always come back to Botanical gardens & do a bit of rework if you have missed any thing on first day.

Oh yeah do not forget to buy locally made chocolates near Charring cross 😉