Tents at KCRE
With Gowri Shankar
Malgudi Days house
Agumbe – my graduation from Auto mode to manual mode
I was looking to get my hands dirty to learn on how to use my Nikon D90 and saw post from Birdwing team about their 3 day Agumbe tour.
I had vivid memory about Agumbe – I was an average student but some interest in geography. The only thing which I remember about Agumbe was it received 2ndhighest rainfall in India.
Google search reveled few interesting facts – Agumbe is part of western ghats, malgudi days town and place to find India Cobras in particular the King Cobra. Agume is also part of UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Our stay in Agumbe was at KCRE which is founded and run by Mr. Gowri Shankar. As name indicates, Gowri knows how to handle Cobras J
We took KSRTC overnight bus from Bangalore and reached in morning at Agumbe. The tour was lead by Kesava and Santosh.
KCRE is situated in heart of the rain forest with close association of wide variety of fauna and flora. KCRE provides tented accommodation which is right within the forest (I was not sure if it will be safe from the King J).
Our first day started with huge surprise. We got chance to see a rescued Spectacled Cobra. I was seeing cobra from so close for the first time.
Post breakfast we started with first photography walk and with it started my graduation from auto mode. Kesava made me change to manual and gave me lot of tips which was followed by Santosh. Both of them gave me confidence and helped me through my struggle of understanding multiple settings. I was able to see and photograph many snakes, frogs, spiders, and various insects.
In 3 days I got opportunity to learn and photograph diverse ecosystem and appreciate how these small creatures are important for overall life in rain forest.
We also got opportunity to have dedicated session from Gowri explaining his and his team’s work on keeping this delicate ecosystem balance. There are many video’s on youtube highlighting work of KCRE.
