Having wanted to check out another potentially good forest with good animal sightings (with a slim chance of seeing a tiger on the hills), I decided to pay a visit to Biligiri Ranganatha Swamy Temple Wildlife Sanctuary or simply BRT Wildlife Sanctuary. This also has a fair amount of tigers after Nagarhole and Bandipur populations as far as Karnataka is concerned, but the terrain is really hilly, being located amidst BR Hills. Having decided on this, I set off one weekend by car on my new tryst with nature.
ABOUT THE FOREST
It is located at the south-western border of Karnataka, which is also contiguous to Tamil Nadu. It can also be viewed as a link between Western and Eastern Ghats, facilitating passage of animals in that corridor. It was declared a tiger reserve back in 2011. It is located in Chamrajnagar district of Karnataka. The sanctuary derives its name Biligiri (white hill in local language) from the white rock face that constitutes the major hill crowned with the temple of Lord Ranganathaswamy (Lord Vishnu) or from the white mist and the silver clouds that cover these hills for a greater part of the year. The forests range from scrub forests at lower elevations, degraded by over-use, to the tall deciduous forests typical of the ecoregion, to stunted shola forests and montane grasslands at the highest elevations, which exceed 1800 meters. The Biligiris are charnockite hills, covered with tropical dry broadleaf forests. The forest stretches around an area of 575 square kilometres and has a high fern cover and lantana cover at places, along with other vegetation typically associated with such terrain. Higher altitudes receive more rainfall than lower altitudes.
Elephants and gaurs are considered plentiful here. The other mammals include sambar, chital, the shy barking deer which are quite common here and the rare four-horned antelope. Carnivores include tigers, leopards, wild dogs, lesser cats and sloth bears and among arboreal mammals two species of primates and three species of squirrels including the giant flying squirrel are recorded. According to tiger scat analysis in 2017, there were 62 tigers here in BR Hills. But the 2022 census indicates that the number of tigers in the Western Ghats landscape has reduced. KGudi is the camp, where the lodge is located and safaris are conducted and even that is around 25+ kms inside the forest.
MY EXPERIENCE
Almost after a car journey of 5 hrs, we reached the camp. While I waited for my tent to be set up properly, I roamed around the nearby pond. Here, from time to time, many of the animals wander into or close to the KGudi Camp premises. Many wild boars appeared to be sauntering about mighty close to humans and later also indulged in a mud bath. Also noticed some water snakes swimming around, in search of food. A little past noon and I was given the go ahead to head to my tent. It had a nice view of the forest. I’ve stayed at lodges before, which were amidst the forest or had no physical boundaries but this was directly connected to the forest on all sides with no fences. Completely different feeling. There was a hammock outside every tent, in case you felt like resting there, right next to the forest. Very pleased with the milieu, I entered my tent to rest a bit.
DAY 1 – EVENING SAFARI [JEEP]
At 3.45 p.m., it was time to report for the evening safari. There was news that a tigress had been sighted by forest department jeep in the morning, which was a bit encouraging. The route is completely on hilly terrain. It also includes a main road route around the hills, before you go up the hills, deep into the forest. But on this occasion, we directly went up the hills. The route here is muddy, with dense forest all around. As we went higher, the density of animals was lower as can be expected. Animals other than birds were difficult to come by. It was a bit overcast. It was difficult to see spotted deer also, to put things into perspective. We did find some though. Plenty birds to see including owls and serpent eagles. A giant malabar squirrel was also spotted. We did see some sambar at a lake, while watching pond terrapin, in the distance. Not a single langur was visible. Towards the ending stages of the safari, we saw some elephants in almost full darkness, while on the main road route. But even they were not really interested in disclosing themselves.
On returning, we watched some animal documentary on wild dogs and tea/coffee. After a while, there was dinner at “Gol Ghar”. Here the “Gol Ghar” was smaller, compared to Nagarhole and Bandipur. But they had some space outside for dining too. Hopeful of better experiences the next day, I hit the sack soon.
DAY 2 – MORNING SAFARI [JEEP]
Next morning, we first checked out outer routes, as sightings were more probable there early morning. The scenery was superb. No sign of the leopard or the tiger though. We had some good sightings of a gaur, before it disappeared and some spotted deer in the early hours of the morning. A giant malabar squirrel made its presence known. We did manage to spot a langur too. Elephant tracks and elephant dung. But no sign of the elephant. I briefly wondered what would happen if an elephant were to be in our path, somewhere up in the hills, on the singular path ahead of us, or a tiger for that matter. Not much place to go around. The guide mentioned that would be a bit of a difficult situation, but the animal would either go up or down the mountain in such a case if presented with no space ahead of them. I got to know there was next to no possibility of sighting a peacock in this forest. The usual birds were sighted. We saw some whistling and other species of ducks. With no main mammal sightings to report, we returned to the camp when it was time.
The nearby pond was always generous with whatever it could offer and some animals always seemed to favour this area. Close to it, was a “no entry” zone, from where the forest officially started. In addition to what I had already seen before here, I was greeted to sightings of Rhesus Macaques, doing their stuff today. Upon coming back to my tent, I tried scanning the visible mountain for signs of life, from there. But I couldn’t make out much in the distance.
Considering how the morning jeep safari went, I was hoping for better in the evening.
DAY 2 – EVENING SAFARI [JEEP]
It was cool till late in the mornings, and the evenings went dark after 6.30 p.m. But this evening, there was an additional aspect which piqued our concerns. 1-2 hrs before the safari, it had rained. But the rains had occurred after a long time and not much overall, so we reckoned it should be fine. We went the usual sequence of routes. Lot of signs of elephants. But none really to see. We did see some new things however. A barking deer, for instance, which is not that uncommon here. A tusker was seen by the guide very deep in the forest, only momentarily. But it didn’t come out for us to see. A lot of fish owls and eagles. A whistling thrush was almost heard on every safari. Some pond terrapins. But not the big guys we were looking for. We returned to the camp, not very excited with the lack of big sightings.
DAY 3 – MORNING SAFARI [JEEP]
It had rained the entire night. Didn’t bode well for the morning. This was going to be my last chance for big sightings in this terrain. I was really shocked to see a large herd of spotted deer just behind my tent. I had just been told the evening before that they don’t generally come so close to the camp. So, it was quite a surprise. The morning safari yielded several animals, maybe more than before it had rained. We saw sloth bear scat and elephant scat in many places. But like before, no tiger tracks or other signs of the big cat. We had some sightings of sambar, ducks, white breasted water hen, a mongoose, barking deer, and several spotted deer. Some birds too. Woodpecker was a new sighting that morning. So, that’s how it all ended without any big sightings on jeep safaris. I made my usual visit to the pond nearby and more or less saw the usual. The wild boars were absent that day. Had they shown up just to entertain me the past couple of days?:D After taking some pictures and returning to the tent, I was greeted by a spotted deer, which walked by. Several langurs were visible in the neighbouring forest. Not sure I had seen as many, during safaris. The proximity of some animal sightings near the lodge was 1 thing which always positively stood out.
THINGS TO NOTE:
1] The “Gol Ghar” at KGudi Camp was pretty small, compared to Bandipur or Nagarhole. Thankfully, they have space for eating outside too.
2] Instead of only trying to find 3-4 tigers on the hilly safari route, they should have a low altitude route also, where more tigers are present and in general more animals may exist and be easier to find.
3] The guide mentioned the tiger appears more on the route path(when it does) rather than the waterholes in the tourism area. But he mentions the waterholes in the tourism area are the only ones, which don’t dry up in the summer.
So, in my opinion they maybe miss that sighting because they end the morning safari half an hour before some other forests do. I have seen tigers appear well after 9 a.m. at waterholes in some other forests, when it gets really hot. In summers, if other waterholes dry up, where else would the tigers be drinking?
4] The forest is more dense than Nagarhole or Bandipur. Very beautiful too. More hilly terrain than other forests as well.
5] The setup of the lodge was nice with a very genuine feeling of being amidst the forest. Never seen so many animals, albeit the more common ones in and around the lodge premises.
6] I am not sure why, at JLR lodges, they link tents / cottages with a certain jeep. Those who come early to the jeep have to wait for others, even though they have not booked a seat in any given jeep. Maybe they can just let the earlier arrivals go by the first jeep and so on. I don’t necessarily see a disadvantage in doing so. Someone’s opportunity of a good sighting shouldn’t go begging because of late arrivals, who didn’t book any specific jeep.
7] The jungle jeep safaris were a tad disappointing, owing to the lack of main sightings, like wild dogs, leopard, tiger, elephant, sloth bear etc, which can be seen here and were seen in the recent past before I got there.
8] 1 thing about Karnataka is that fully clear skies are hard to come by in some places, any time of the year. I mean I’ve been to forests here in end April, early & late May, early-mid June, but it almost always rained to some extent. Difficult to single out when summer starts and ends here, especially in the last few years. It can have an impact on sightings in principal although it is the outcome of several factors coming together.
TO CONCLUDE:
Shortly after the last morning safari, I set off for Bangalore. On the way out, we caught a fleeting glimpse of a peacock, which is generally not seen here. To conclude, it was certainly an interesting and refreshing visit. But for sure, I could’ve been happier with my experience during the safaris here. I will not hide my disappointment about the same but to be fair, I knew beforehand probability of seeing big game was relatively meagre here than some other forests.