Birding ! Driving ! Soul-searching !: February 2020

Friday, February 7, 2020

Bird Watching in Nilgiris – Ooty and Conoor

This was the first time I was going to take the Audi A4 to the ghats section and I was super excited to see how it performs. The moment I took the first hair-pin bend out of the 36 hair-pins of Ooty, my love affair with the new car just got reinforced. The ease with which the fully loaded car climbed up the hair-pin from a speed of less than 5 kmph, I could immediately feel the difference from the earlier Ford Fiesta. There was absolutely no effort what-so-ever and the car just eased into those hilly terrains with utmost comfort and with no dearth of power when it was needed. Amongst all this, if I tell you the fuel economy which the car returned driving through those hills, I can bet the german competition is going to start hiding its face somewhere. Audi A4 35 TFSI Petrol returned a mileage of 11.5 km/litre in those ghat sections. This was not what the car display was showing, this was the actual tank-to-tank figure. NOW BEAT THAT!

Vorsprung durch Technik

Below are the Trip Reports downloaded from MY AUDI app.
TRIP SUMMARY: K Gudi - Ooty - Conoor - Bandipur
Total Distance: 240 km

K Gudi to Ooty (1st leg)

K Gudi to Ooty (2nd leg)

Ooty to Conoor

Conoor to Bandipur (1st leg)

Conoor to Bandipur (2nd leg)

So, all-in-all the drive was fantastic and bird watching in Nilgiris was the added bonus. Enjoy the video and pics below.

Black and Orange Flycatcher female

Besra

Common Rosefinch male

Common Rosefinch female

House Sparrow male

Pied Bushchat male

Sykes's Warbler

Indian Scimitar Babbler

Greenish Warbler

Grey-headed Canary Flycatcher

White-cheeked Barbet

Common Hoopoe

Oriental White-eye

Grey Wagtail

Black Redstart Female

Red-whiskered Bulbul

Great Tit

Also, enjoy the video that I downloaded from my car dashcam. We really enjoyed zooming past the fastag tolls with such ease, considering what was happening to the cash queue.

Sunday, February 2, 2020

Bird Watching in K Gudi

The idea was to go on a long drive coupled with some casual birding. When you combine it with JLR and a quest to visit a new JLR location, K Gudi came in the picture. And so the plan was developed to drive the following route Hyderabad – Bangalore – K Gudi – Ooty – Conoor – Bandipur – Bangalore – Hyderabad. A perfect way to spend the whole week with some amazing driving opportunity and relaxed birding prospect.

Below are the Trip Report downloaded from MY AUDI app.

TRIP SUMMARY: Hyderabad to Bangalore
Total Distance: 680 km
Total Time: 8 hours 30 minutes

Hyderabad to Bangalore (1st leg)

The 2nd leg of the journey of about 100 km, i wasn't able to download from the MY AUDI app.

Hyderabad to Bangalore (3rd leg)

TRIP SUMMARY: Bangalore to K Gudi
Total Distance: 260 km
Total Time: 4 Hours 15 Min

Bangalore to K Gudi (1st leg)

Bangalore to K Gudi (2nd leg)

K Gudi is a lesser known JLR property but one of the closest ones from Bangalore. The drive was also good except for a few diversions on the highway because of road repair. K Gudi is mostly a hilly jungle and you won't find any flat terrain during the safari. Maybe that's why the sighting was also not so encouraging as compared to Bandipur. But then again, we spotted two lifers (Painted Bush Quail and Rufous Babbler) and for us that is more than enough to get our share of the joy.

Enjoy the video here, followed by the pics.