Early birds in Munnar, Kerala

Both me and Mr M are early birds and I guess if you want to see 

some real early birds that's a good thing...

so one of the mornings at the home stay in Munnar we where sitting in the treehouse before 7

fantastic views and fantastic light

the views where like from out of a movie

no, it's not dirt on the lens..it is a bird !!

while Mr M was reading his book 

I of course was looking through the lens...

I have found that I'm more interested in birds than I knew...

looking out into a jungle trying to find some birds can be a lot harder than you think...

just try and find the parrot in this one !!

I wish I had THE BIG telescope lens that some photographers have...

they are SO expensive if you didn't know and also SO heavy....

but I do think I'm strong enough to manage...

they are so far away but you can still see the bright colours in the birds...I hope...

remember that you can always make the picture bigger

these are black and orange flycatchers....

an scarlet minivet singing in the morning

two kinds of parrot....see the difference in sizes...the big one I don't think I have seen before...

I'm not sure if it is a Kerala laughingtrush..

adorable little birdie....

wagtail....

eurasian blackbirds.....

fantastic what you can see when being an early bird...

but it also means I'm not a night person

I need my sleep and usually from early on

zzzzzzzz

Wild elephants around Mattupetty dam

after hiking in the tea plantations we headed for

Mattupetty dam because our guide had told us that if you're lucky you can see elephants there

so we left Munnar...

and headed for the dam..together with so many other tourists..

since it was Dussehra weekend everyone else had vacation to..

both of us said that with all these people there will be no elephants...

I'm sure happy we where wrong 

had to stop at this bee tree....so many bees ! look closely and you'll see

the reservoir at the dam...

then I saw my first elephant far far away on the other side of the dam..

my heart jumped with joy !

so cool...glad I spotted him..and I thought that if I see one there's got to be more since they live in families...and I was right !

 just a little up ahead we got too see a family of five..

incredible...they where so close...

now this guy came really close ...

they are so protective of their small ones...

and they started to move so we had to get out of there...

don't want any angry elephant encounter..

so we drove further away...

when they moved they hid the baby in between them...

now I actually saw that there was one with some small tusks..

I could have stayed there the rest of the day...

best part is that we saw three more on the way back..

8 wild elephants in a day...not bad at all...

amazing to get to see them in the wild like this..

wow, what a day we had !

Hiking in the tea plantations in Munnar, Kerala...

this part of the world has to be one of the most beautiful..

it was breathtaking I tell you..

                              and not just because we hiked almost 400 meters up to the top..

you can't just go off hiking anywhere in the plantations so we got
a guide ....

 at 9.30 we where on our way up up up....
our guide told us interesting things about the tea production
and about the fauna we had around us...
look closer at the picture and you will see that he has 2 thumbs on one hand...

tea tea tea everywhere we looked 

Anamudi peak is the highest mountain in Kerala..also called elephant mountain because the front looks like an elephant head...it's 2695 m high....

they fit right in don't they ?

of course I don't remember the name of this flower but I thought it looked

like a "majblomme krans".....

this is wild turmeric...growing high up...

right after seeing this flower our guide showed us elephant poo and it was fresh meaning that there where elephants somewhere around us.....how cool wasn't that !

look at that view....it didn't matter that it was foggy or misty or whatever...

at this point we did have a water break...

we just sat there and took it all in...

our guide told us about this flower....

the blue Neelakurinji flower...

that only flowers every 12th  year !!

and we got to see it...

this endemic little bird  had picked something  for the nest...

some of the birds where really hard to spot...even worse to get pictures off....

next animal we almost encountered was an Indian bison !!...I kind off nearly put my foot 

in a big pile of poo....ooohhh...

I'm not sure I would want to meet a bison up here at 1700 meters and the try to outrun him !! don't think so...

but they reassured me that the bison is very shy...

so am I but will that help if I meet him !

we saw so many butterflies but it was so hard to get any got shots...

it was blue ones, black and white ones  etc - BIG and small, and this kind....quite big..

this part of the hills had a lot of new tea plants....they only give good tea for about 100 years !!!

another endemic bird we where told....not sure about this one...

by the way endemic means that they only are to be found in Kerala...some even only in Munnar...

favourite picture...

all of a sudden I did see some workers....they where walking so fast....

almost running down the mountain....

so I just had catch up....by running downhill....yeezzz....slippery and steep

finally I caught up...

Kerala has many wild orchids but at least I got to see  one...

around this spot our guide found traces of crested porcupine...he found two "needles"

from the animal..so cool....and they really are like needles...so sharp...

 of course a rickshaw...

that's what you expect when taking in the view.... 

not really..

one of the workers along the way...

oh, there was a bird in the flower...

we ended our hiking by walking across this hanging bridge....

was like a big swing...

of course I need to get a picture of a holy Kerala cow and the tea plantation

they actually looked like cows back home...

three hours and 400 meters in height later we where down in the valley again

a little tired but very pleased

and both of us said we should have stayed a couple of days and hiked every morning..

well well....next time..

I'm a little sad that I didn't get to click any pictures of some tea pickers because it was Dusshera holiday...

well well...another time

after seeing all these tea trees....

How much tea can you drink ?