Bird watching near Kalikesam Waterfalls

Kalikesam is a birding hotspot located in Kanyakumari Wildlife Sanctuary. Kalikesam Waterfalls is just 35 kms from Nagercoil, our hometown. So we used to visit this place even before we started bird watching. In South India, most of the outings with families are to visit temples. We also followed the same trait and visited Kalikesam for the Kali temple. Once we started bird watching, we revisited many of our childhood picnic places and we were really surprised about the biodiversity in those areas. During picnic, you take a dip in the water or eat yummy foods sitting under a tree or play with your family. So we never noticed any birds , butterflies or wildflowers. We recently visited Kalikesam after good rains and we really had a great time bird watching in that sanctuary.

The road to reach Kalikesam is not a well maintained one and there are no frequent buses , precisely something we like.

So tourists can reach this place only in their private vehicle. There were many rubber plantations and few streams were flowing along the edges of jungle. Sometimes the water level was so high, we cannot cross the streams. When we saw the level of water was manageable, vinod slowly pushed the bike and crossed the water. I was trudging even for this low water level, because the flowing water had a surprisingly high force.

After the water crossing, we came across a big fig tree. Ficus is always the life of a jungle and we saw the Hill Mynas, Yellow-footed Green Pigeons were pecking the fig berries. The Hill Mynas were making such a racket, we could have missed the familiar knocking sound.

I was searching for the Flameback woodpecker, the common one but Vinod spotted the elusive Lesser Yellownape Woodpecker on the bark of a tree. This woodpecker can only be seen in jungles, so now we know why Kalikesam is one of the birding hotspots in Kanyakumari district.

There was no vehicle traffic on the road and we were enjoying our birding in a silent atmosphere. Suddenly there were heavy thuds, smacking sounds and the usual village traffic started ! The cows had to start their day for work.

We spotted a rock to sit and eat our local dish Pazham Nirachathu (Malabar stuffed Pazham Pori) till the traffic got clear.  Pazham Nirachathu is one of my favorite snacks which we get only in specific Kanyakumari and Kerala foodstalls. We were seeing Yellow-browed bulbul, Brown-headed barbet, Jerdon’s leaf bird, Hooded Oriole and few other forest birds.

There was a family of Oriental honey buzzard circling on top of us. Except in the mountains and a small buffer zone , this place was completely plantations. So there were few plantation labors working in the plantations. Once the land is taken for mono cropping, the diversity of wildlife drastically falls down . So we don’t even search for birds in rubber, eucalyptus plantations. Here as we were very close to the forest, the raptors were choosing the plantations as resting spots. We spotted a Crested serpent eagle inside a plantation and a Legge’s Hawk Eagle on the roadside itself. These eagles are really very majestic looking forest eagles. They cannot be seen in dry jungles, with their sightings we could understand the richness of this Kanyakumari Wildlife Sanctuary.

Rare butterflies spotting:

As we we were nearing the river, we could see lots of butterflies.

There was a small patch of Senna flowers on the roadside where we saw Common Crow, Blue Tiger, Emigrant butterflies in good numbers. With the Monsoon in full swing  ,  we were eagerly recording all the butterflies we saw in Kalikesam. Like we expected, there was a small puddle of water near the river with a group of mud puddling butterflies. Banded blue pierrots were making the floor active but the Spotted swordtail who joined the group made it more vivid.  But what interested us more , were the rarities. Out of nowhere we spotted two elusive butterflies seldom seen in Tamil Nadu. They were the Banded Royal and Large Guava Blue butterflies.

After looking into few more butterflies, we went to the Kali temple near the river. These were once built by the local tribes, so the temple didn’t look out of place like the current temples. These small temples gave a sense of safety for local people. We just sat there and enjoyed the gurgling water. In one of our trips to this place, we walked on the pebbles and reached the Kalikesam waterfalls where we had a nice bath. This time we could not cross the stream even at this water level. Kalikesam is famous for the flash floods because when there is heavy rain in the nearby mountains, the river fills up very quickly. In few seconds, calm river turns into raging river and you will be caught in the torrent even before you realize it.

So we decided to stick to this end of the stream and we were looking at the forest trees on the other end. I know “Grasses Look Green On the Other End” but in this case it was really true. I didn’t even search for flora in the forest edges as there was  overgrazing and overgrowth of invasive weeds like Lantana & Parthenium. But there were forest trees like Vengai in full bloom which made the canopy very yellow. The bees and butterflies were competing for the nectar in those forest trees.

Another beautiful orchid:

While we were watching all these micro events in binoculars, a big, violet color flower attracted our attention. The Vanda tessellata was hanging on a tree and it was in bloom. We had seen the plant in many forests but always with no flowers. This time we saw the Vanda Orchid in bloom and the flower was really amazing.

We were happy with our sightings in Kalikesam forest and we were discussing about the possibility of hiking inside the forest if we could get any permission from Keeriparai reserve forest authorities.

We also decided to do bird watching in other hotspots that are close to our hometown like Puthalam, Kanyakumari, Theroor lake bird sanctuary, Udayagiri fort and Alathankarai. Recently, we came to know ecotourism is promoted in Kalikesam by Forest Department and they were arranging hiking inside the forest. Also they have restricted the public to walk near the river and we need permission to cross the forest check post.