Trip to Dubare and Muttur (Official version)

Please do not read the following post if you are a normal individual and have just had a meal. For a better and prettier entry on the same matter click here or scroll down. This one is for Vikram Hegde, 9th standard, Pushkarini School, Mysore.

This post does not cover the Dubare, Byalakuppe and Gommatagiri part of the trip... Just Muttur IB and surroundings...

Karnataka Forest Department Inspection Bungalow, Muttur is set amidst a batch of teak planted in 1935. Teak, Tectona grandis, (Sagwani or Taiga in Kannada). The trees I saw were about 40-50 feet tall.

This post would have gone up long ago, on tuesday, if the net had cooperated.

And now I have forgotten all that I wanted to type so I shall just mention that I saw a lot of Rosewood as soon as I stepped out of the teak patch, which is my mother's favorite tree. favorite hardwood tree at least. Rosewood grows a bit slower and used to be more expensive than teak till about eight years ago. However it is much harder than teak and less grainy as compared to teak.

I also saw various types of Bamboo, Champa, mango and funnily wild cashew in large numbers. Apart from this, i can think of Muttuga trees which I saw in decent numbers.
A handful of silk cotton trees which are not that prevalent in this region.

It was a great relief that there was almost no lantana anywhere.

I've never had a good eye for flora that doesn't grow taller than me so the line about Lantana covers shrubbery and undergrowth.

We didn't see many animals like I was cribbing as we neared the end of the trip. The few we saw, I failed to click a picture of.

However I got a picture of the thing that would have excited 9th std. Vikram the most.

This is not just any elephant dung. This is fresh elephant dung. laid about half an hour to one hour before the picture was taken. Still moist with a regular thick consistency indicating good health and there wasn't too much of it. Of course there was much more than what is shown in the picture here.

Dung is the best way to check the health of a bovid, equid or elephant... especially when they aren't around.

Far less glamorous was the feces of a passing bear which also I dutifully photographed but did not push a stick into, like I did with the elephant dung.

I just put the last one in for grossness value and to justify the opening statement.