Missed my earlier posts? Don't worry, you can catch up by clicking the button below.

Trip to Jayamangali Blackbuck Reserve

Jayamangali Blackbuck Reserve is a protected area for Blackbucks located around 87 miles from Bangalore. I visited the place on a Sunday, recently. Here are some photos from the trip...

...
A friend and I set off early in the morning at about 3 am, in the hope of sighting the Blackbucks before the sun forces them to hide in the woods. We reached the Reserve just before sunrise...
...
Soon the sun came out giving us a glimpse of a couple of Blackbucks...
...
A closeup of the sun...
...
Blackbucks are also known as Indian Antelope. They are extremely wary of humans and will vanish within no time if we approach by foot. But they seemed to tolerate us if we stay in the car. We surreptitiously moved our car closer to them in the grassland habitat. A group of juvenile males were seen...
...
A juvenile with its corkscrew horns...
...
Two juveniles practice lekking. Male blackbucks engage in competitive displays to entice visiting females. Here the juveniles are supervised by an adult...


...
Here's a male adult...
...


...
...
We moved to another location to find a group of female Blackbucks...
...
The females lack the horns...

...
The female herd is usually accompanied by a male who keeps a watchful eye. The male ensures that nobody strays away from the group..
...
...
One of them strayed away...
...
The male rushes to bring her back to the herd...
...
...
Two dogs played spoilsport. Their presence made the deer vanish, abruptly halting our shoot. 
I saw a Red-wattled Lapwing next...
...
We drove around in search of birds. A Eurasian Hoopoe was foraging in the grass...
...

...
A White-eyed Buzzard was spotted next...
...
A Laughing Dove (Little Brown Dove)...
...
A male Pied Bushchat...


...
The view of hills nearby...
...
I saw another male Blackbuck leisurely regurgitating and chewing to mix the cud with saliva...
...

...
A Blister beetle. It is so called for their defensive secretion of a blistering agent, cantharidin...
...
By 8:30 am butterflies started to become active. A Pioneer butterfly...
...
A juvenile Oriental Garden Lizard looked cute...
...
Red Collared-Dove (Red Turtle-Dove). There was no dearth of this beauty...
...
An Indian Peafowl was seen next. It has almost the same level of shyness as the blackbucks. It did the vanishing act as soon as it sensed our presence...
...
A male Rose-ringed Parakeet peeped out from behind a tree...
...
It was 9 am and we decided to return. An Indian Roller was seen on our way back...
...
We waited for it to fly to capture its stunning wings. But it stayed there with occasional, long, 'Kaarsch' calls for close to 10 minutes...
...
And just when we were losing patience, it spread its wings...
...
The open wings motivated us and we waited for some more time to see the flight. Then it flew and I clicked at will...
...
I got one more shot of the flight from the burst of clicks...
...
On the way back we also saw a Greater Coucal, another bird of the extremely shy category...
...
The last sighting of the day was a Large Grey Babbler with his meal...

...
Thus ended a moderately satisfying trip. This place has many more interesting species and multiple visits are required to see most of them. Hope I can return soon. 

I hope you liked the post. Looking forward to your thoughts in the comments section below. 

Do join me on Instagram at @shijuvenate 





56 comments:

  1. Your sunrise photos are lovely, and I'm amazed at the variety of wildlife you can see so near your home. The photos are wonderful. Such graceful and beautiful creatures.

    best... mae at maefood.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hello,:=) I love your third capture,it's extremely beautiful, and all the Indian Antelope captures are great. You always share so many different bird species, but my favourite today is the Indian Roller bird. Great captures of this beauty in flight.

    ReplyDelete
  3. The antelopes are lovely.
    Every bird, even the most insignificant changes a lot with its wings open.
    Happy weekend!

    ReplyDelete
  4. What a great series of photos.
    I especially like the last photos of photo 30, but photo 21 is really perfect.
    I also think the deer are very nicely photographed.
    Greetings Irma

    ReplyDelete
  5. Hello,
    Gorgeous sunrise, your early start paid off with the sightings of the beautiful animals and birds. The male Blackbucks Antelope are beautiful, I like the corkscrew horns. The female antelope are pretty. What a great series of photos! The Indian Roller, the Parakeet, the Lapwing and the Hoopoe are some of my favorite birds. Great post. Thank you so much for linking up and sharing your post. Take care, have a happy weekend. PS, I appreciate your comments and visit.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Your early start was well rewarded. Wish I had been with you.

    ReplyDelete
  7. What a fun outing, well worth the early morning drive. The BLackbucks are a handsome animal. Those horns are amazing. I like to see lizards. We don't have many lizards around where I live. I am amazed that this one stayed still long enough for a portrait. My experience with lizards are that they are very skittish. I am not very fast with the camera. Probably my impatience. Your patience paid off waiting for the Roller. The Eurasian Hoopoe is one of my most wanted birds, one exotic that I think I might be able to see at some point. I think they are fascinating.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Absolutely beautiful, well done.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Hello Shiju. Well I definitely think that was worth a 3am start. The Blackbucks are simply stunning in all ages and sexes and you were very clever to get so many superb photos. Like deer all over the world, they have good reason to fear man.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Hi, Shiju! Your blog inspires me. Your photos are excellent. I appreciate the design of your blog. The size of your photos and your captions ... well done! Thank you for sharing!

    ReplyDelete
  11. Wow! Those blackbucks are so awesome to see ~ and fantastic photography alone with excellent photos of our feathered friends ~ love the unique (to me) dove ~ thanks ~ Xo

    Living in the moment,

    A ShutterBug Explores,
    aka (A Creative Harbor)

    ReplyDelete
  12. ...my friend, you have a fabulous collection, I would need to go to a zoo to see many of these. Thanks for sharing.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Beautiful, wonderful photos!
    I especially like the third photo - the one with the sunrise just above the treetops

    ReplyDelete
  14. Oh the photos are amazing
    I really like the photos

    ReplyDelete
  15. Those horns don't look real when you look up close. How wonderful to see so many wonderful 'critters'!

    ReplyDelete
  16. I went back to look more closely at the birds. The parakeet is a prize winning photo and I love the Indian roller when he flies!

    ReplyDelete
  17. I love them all! I've never even heard of a blackbuck!

    ReplyDelete
  18. These are MARVELOUS! Thank You

    ReplyDelete
  19. Outstanding!! I can see why you waited for the colorful wings. Stunning. And the antelope are beautiful too.

    Hope you enjoyed your weekend and thanks for linking in.

    ReplyDelete
  20. That Indian Roller and Hoophoe are fabulous. Oh, those wings on the Indian Roller -- I applaud your patience. I was well worth it! The antelope are handsome, too. As always I feel like I was there with you, thanks to your wonderful eye and fabulous camera technique!

    ReplyDelete
  21. Beautiful creatures and your photographs are marvelous!

    ReplyDelete
  22. Very fruitful trip to the Blackbuck reserve. Lovely sunrise. Beautiful antelopes. As always, you take great photos of all the beautiful critters.

    ReplyDelete
  23. Great animal shots. Love them

    ReplyDelete
  24. WOW! what fabulous photos and those corksrew horns amazing :-)

    Have a sunsetblackbucktastic week 👍

    ReplyDelete
  25. Great captures! Those blackbucks are so neat.

    ReplyDelete
  26. You are an early bird. You go up when I go to bed. :) I was thrilled to see the beautiful Antelopes and the Hoopoe bird.
    Your antelope is really gorgeous in shape and color. And you got some good shots of the Hoopoe. It is strange. I painted the bird last week and now I see it in many blogs. Myself I have only seet it flying away so I have no shots of my own. :(

    ReplyDelete
  27. Such magnificent animals and such beautiful photos!

    ReplyDelete
  28. Such delicate and beautiful creatures!

    ReplyDelete
  29. Hi Shiju, I am your newest follower on Instagram. Thanks for the link. 4ufromjohnr

    ReplyDelete
  30. Incredible photography!

    Those blackbuck shots are stunners!

    ReplyDelete
  31. Wow, how beautiful wings the Indian Roller has! The blackbucks are adorable animals <3

    ReplyDelete
  32. Loved the antelope and birds. That Indian Roller has amazing blue wings!

    ReplyDelete
  33. Those horns are mesmerizing. Love the beautiful birds, too.

    ReplyDelete
  34. Wonderful photos! I love those horns, how cool to have corkscrew horns!!

    ReplyDelete
  35. Your trip to this wildlife reserve was a great success. Your photo of the male Blackbuck looking straight into the camera is terrific. Your bird photos are wonderful. Yes, I greatly enjoyed seeing this post, and am impressed by your skill and talent.

    ReplyDelete
  36. You a really blessed with such kind of trips.
    And your photos are perfect!
    Thank you a lot for the entrance. For a period of time I am the host of the game and I open it on Tuesday evening.
    Happy WW!

    ReplyDelete
  37. I am always in awe of your pictures and it was fascinating to look at your pictures of the blackbucks. Beautiful!
    www.chezmireillefashiontravelmom.com

    ReplyDelete
  38. The antelopes are beautiful creatures. The females look so much deer. Maybe you remember we lived in the forest, and deer were a daily sight. The female deer with their young were much more on their own. We seldom saw a here with females and males together. Also love the butterfly, beetle d blue bird. All beautifully captured, Shiju! What a great post!

    ReplyDelete
  39. The blackbucks look very graceful. I like their curling antlers. Your other photos are all beautiful --the parakeet was my favorite as it had an expression of curiosity on its face.

    ReplyDelete
  40. Getting up so early was very rewarding. And as for the colourful bird's wings at the end...Oh MY!
    Great to have you link up for #lifethisweek. Next week, the optional prompt is Water. See you at Denyse Whelan Blogs then too I hope. Denyse.

    ReplyDelete
  41. Once again you've presented us with some stunning photos. Well worth getting up early for!

    ReplyDelete
  42. What a grand adventure---and fabulous photos!

    ReplyDelete
  43. Amazing photos. The corkscrew horns make them very photogenic. I think I recognize some of your photoprints hanging on the wall?

    ReplyDelete
  44. Beautiful shots of the blackbucks. I learned about a new animal today because of you.

    ReplyDelete
  45. Great series sir again! Loved the bucks and birds

    ReplyDelete
  46. Amazing pics. Thanks for sharing your beautiful day at Funtastic Friday Link Party.

    ReplyDelete
  47. Amazing photos, as usual. The blackbucks are beautiful!

    ReplyDelete
  48. Your photos NEVER fail to amaze! Gorgeous!
    Thank you for sharing at https://image-in-ing.blogspot.com/2021/10/montezuma-castle.html. I always enjoy your posts.

    ReplyDelete
  49. The spiral horns are amazing. Beautiful creatures. Thank you for linking up.

    ReplyDelete
  50. Thank goodness for protected areas. I want my grandchildren to be nature lovers and to have places to visit although they live in a beautiful area with parks and mountains and lots of nature to see...Michelle

    ReplyDelete
  51. Very happy to discover your blog! Amazing photographs

    ReplyDelete
  52. The horns are epic! And so are your photos. You spotted much more than the blackbucks. What a great day on photo safari.

    ReplyDelete
  53. Waking up that early was so worth it. You got to see and take wonderful photos of the wildlife there. Lovely photos! I can see why you waited for the wings to open, they are beautiful.

    -Soma

    ReplyDelete
  54. Oh WOW - YES! Getting up early was worth it! You managed to take great photos of the Blackbucks! And you also captured many other animal sightings wonderfully. Your patience with the Indian Roller was rewarded - but I also think the plumage of the two pigeons is beautiful. And the Oriental Garden Lizard really has an extremely cute face!
    All the best
    Traude
    https://rostrose.blogspot.com/2021/10/babybauch-shooting-und-die-farben.html

    ReplyDelete

I appreciate you taking the time to visit my blog and I truly value any feedback you have to offer. If you have a moment, please share your thoughts with me.
**If you opt to post a comment anonymously, kindly disclose your name to put my curiosity to rest.