Nelliampathi is a prominent hill station in the Western Ghats situated in the Palakkad district of Kerala. The forest check post, which is situated at Pothundi, opens at 7 am for tourists and is located approximately 8 kilometers from Nenmara and 30 kilometers from Palakkad railway station.
Once we cross the check post, the ghat road with its hairpins, twists, and turns passes through the evergreen forest ranges, giving you glimpses of the Pothundi Dam reservoir and views of the hills and valleys at different viewpoints. I always make it a point to start on the ghat roads by 07:00 am in the morning, listening to the bird songs, stopping to take photographs of birds in good views, and always enjoying the sighting of the main attraction of Nelliampathi the state bird of Kerala, the Great Hornbill (Buceros bicornis). Great Hornbills are usually seen feeding in the canopy or flying through the valley on the ghat roads. The sound they produce with their wing flaps and their calls echoes through the forest, giving them their Malayalam name, “Malamuzhakki Vezhambal.”
On the way up, near the main viewpoint, a good-looking tusker was feeding on long grass, seemingly unbothered by the onlookers on the road. Every vehicle stopped to photograph the beautiful animal before continuing on their journey.
Through the tea plantations past Kesavan Para, a popular hotspot for tourists, I came across a Hoopoe nest which provided a rare opportunity to observe a Hoopoe feeding its chicks. The male and female birds took turns to feed the two chicks in the nest, which was a hole in a tree about four meters above the ground. The Hoopoes, with their striking colors and patterns flying in and out of the nest, were a delightful sight. We enjoyed photographing from a safe distance using a telephoto lens.
We moved on further to the known area where hornbill nests are visible from the road, so we could see them bringing food for the chick. Hornbill nests are usually high up in the cavities of large trees. The female enters the nest and closes the opening with mud and droppings, leaving a narrow opening through which the male bird feeds her through the incubation period. A few weeks after the eggs hatch, the female leaves the nest and closes the opening again. From then on, both the male and female continue to feed the chicks until they leave the nest.
On this visit, with both the male and female out of the nest, we witnessed the male hornbill bringing a green forest lizard to feed its chick. It was a struggle for the bird as it tried to subdue the lizard and get it into a state suitable for the chick (this process took about half an hour). I have previously observed hornbills bringing eggs from the nests of other small birds and their chicks, and also some reptiles like the Anamalai pit viper, large-scaled pit viper, and vine snakes. From a few days before the female leaves the nest, the hornbills bring in such prey to fulfill the protein requirements of the newborn. Their usual diet also includes a variety of fruits.
We had enough opportunity to photograph many visits by both male and female, each bringing different types of food for the chick at two different locations. On one occasion, an Anamalai pit viper a very large one was brought in. After struggling for almost an hour, the bird had to drop the snake without feeding it to the chick, likely because the snake was too large.
Every visit to Nelliampathi offers moments worth photographing and cherishing whether it’s the hornbills attempting to enlarge a cavity to make it their home, their mating rituals, their mesmerizing noisy flights, feeding patterns, or the activities and feeding of the newborn once it leaves the nest.
The wild dog packs of Nelliampathi often hunt and feed on Sambar deer, which is one sight worth watching for me. We were approaching the location of the hanging bridge when I heard the commotion where the pack of wild dogs was on a kill, hunting an adult Sambar deer. They consumed the deer in about two hours’ time, leaving only the bones in the stream. These wild dogs are known to start feeding on their prey while it is alive and standing one of the most brutal ways of killing in the wild, in my opinion. After the initial feast immediately following the kill, the group took turns feeding later. The kill was by the side of the stream, and the wild dogs rested on the rocks, often jumping from one to another, playing in the water, and moving around the stream.
Another great opportunity came up last year when we were photographing hornbills. We heard the alarm call of a Sambar deer and decided to have a look. There was a leopard looking straight back at me from within the bushes and coffee plants. I managed to take a few photographs before it disappeared into the thick undergrowth after a few seconds of staring.
The Legge’s Hawk-Eagle is one of the main attractions here in Nelliampathi, and I’ve had the opportunity to observe it on several occasions the most recent being when it made a kill of a flameback. It was truly a remarkable experience to witness the predator in action.
