Agumbe – Rainforest – Kedar Bhide

I wanted to visit Agumbe for so many years but the plan never materialized. This time it just happened over a long weekend.

Me, Vidya Venkatesh and Bhavna Menon, drove from Mumbai to Sirsi, stayed at Greenworld farm , just 18 kms from Sirsi. This was started and run by Mumbai Couple, Aniruddha and Prachi Bhat. Very beautifully made resort with amazing local food served.

From Sirsi we drove to Jog falls and then ended in Agumbe. Had lovely drive, roads are amazingly maintained.

At Agumbe, we stayed at KALINGA CENTER FOR RAINFOREST ECOLOGY , run by Gaurishankar. There was a group there headed by Dr. Mahadevan who is Head of Emergency Medical Services at Stanford . we could discussed a lot about snake bite first aid and other things.

Also visited ARRS, AGUMBE RAINFOREST RESEARCH STATION , started by Rom Whitaker, visited surrounding forests, learned about their work on conservation and awareness in surrounding villages, picked our friend Mittal who works there and we headed back to Mumbai.

Seeing Hump nosed pit viper and if possible , photographing it was always on my wishlist. and on the first evening in Agumbe, it got fulfilled. it is one of the beautiful snake of India and I was lucky to be able to photograph it on the first day in Agumbe. Thanks to some other group who had spotted it earlier.

Thanks Vidya Venkatesh , for photographing this sequence of my photography.

Its not easy to photograph in rains and in nights and that also without disturbing your subject , in natural environment. Yes sometimes, you need to move subject to better conditions when you need to document, but otherwise we should try to disturb subject as less as possible.

In Rainforest, you need to be very observant, as there are so many small things which you don”t know and amazingly beautiful. It can be mushrooms on dead log or frog croaking in the nights to moths flying around. Spiders hunting in the night, I found one eating Gecko.