Mother Nature

The white-cheeked barbet or small green barbet (Megalaima viridis) is a species of barbet found in southern India. It is similar to brown-headed barbet (Megalaima zeylanica). It is endemic to the forest areas of the Western Ghats and adjoining hills, in south India. Photograph taken by Mohan Kumar Kalaiah White-cheeked barbet is about 16 to 18 cm long, and have green body, brownish streaked head. It has a distinctive supercilium and a broad white cheek stripe below the eye. Like other barbets it mainly feeds on fruits, sometimes may eat insects. Like woodpeckers, White-cheeked barbets are primary cavity nesters. Both sexes excavate the nest and it can take about 20 days to complete the nest. Barbets begin breeding in December and continue to nest until May. It play an important role in forests as seed dispersal agents.

Deepavali is one of the festivals celebrated in India. It signifies victory of light over darkness, knowledge over ignorence, good over evil. Photograph taken by Mohan Kumar Kalaiah Happy Deepavali !

The red-whiskered bulbul (Pycnonotus jocosus) is native to India, Burma, Cambodia, China, Malaysia, Java and Sumatra (islands in Indonesia), North and South Vietnam. Photograph taken by Mohan Kumar Kalaiah Red-whiskered bulbul is about 20 centimeters long, and have brown back wings, white breast and long tail. It has a prominent tall pointed crest, white cheeks with red whiskers behind their eyes and thin black moustach. It feeds on variety of fruits (berries etc.), nectar and small insects. Both sexes work together for several days to weave an open cup nest. Red-whiskered bulbuls weave the nest using leaves, twigs, root, bark strips etc. Both birds incubate the eggs and care for the young birds. Its life span is about 11 years.

Spiders are arthropods. An arthropod is an animal with a hard outer shell (exoskeleton or external skeleton), a segmented body (body divided into segments), and limbs with joints. Arthropods constitute more than 90% of the animal kingdom and include insects, spiders, centipedes, shrimp, and crayfish. Spiders live almost everywhere on earth, they live in forests, plains, mountains, deserts and underwater. Some spiders live on animals! There are about 36000 kinds of spiders and it is believed that there may be as many as 170,000 kinds of them. Spiders have two main body parts (cephalothorax and abdomen) and have eight legs. Most spiders have eight eyes, but some have as many as 24 eyes!! and others do not have any eyes. Most spiders eat insects and some eat fish and frogs, birds and lizards, large spiders may eat smaller spiders. Spiders bite their prey with their sharp fangs and the poison from the fangs slows or kills the prey. Young spiders are called spiderlings.

Snails are the oldest known animals in the world (evolved more than 600 million years ago). Snails are very small animals that are only a few inches long and weigh only a few ounces. They have adapted to a variety of habitat such as land, dessert, ocean etc. As a snail moves it leaves behind a trail of slime. This allows them to move easily across any type of land without injuring its body.

Flower arrangement made for Dasara 2009 Variety of flowers grown in the campus for Dasara 2009 Roses in rose garden

Kodachadri is a mountain peak at an altitude of1343 m above sea level in the Western Ghats in Shivamogga (Shimoga) district, Karnataka State. As we had planned, we left mysore by 8.30 pm by bus and reached the place Kumbale in Shivamogga by 7.00 am. Here we finish the morning duties, had coffee, breakfast and started climbing by 8.30 am. Our team and we started from Kumbale Kumbale From this place we walked around 5 km and reached actual starting point to climb Kodachaadri. After we reached this place we rested for some time and started climbing the mountain. It was a thick forest, as we walked in there was a water point. From this place, we had to climb the steeply sloping part of the mountain. Some Views on the Way As we climbed the mountain, there we reached a water fall it was a beautiful sight to watch and it was the coolest place in the trek. Water falls on the way Here, near water falls we spent some time and again started to climb the mountain, as we climbed the mountain s...