Finally after multiple procrastination and delays, we made a trip to tirumala last week. I was curious and looking forward to this trip for couple of reasons. It's my trip after a 15 year period! It's my first trip after I started birding and it's happening around GBBC time, so I was hoping to catch up with some birding as well.
After doing the traditional darshan and rituals I managed to squeeze in some time to do little briding and some insect clicks
We saw a huge banyan tree where the kids were happy to play.
A bee and some wasps too turned up.
Post returning to Tirupati, I managed to volunteer to take a group of children at Regional Science Centre for a nature walk. We spotted some orioles, ashy drongos and went around the centre. As they saw the best things were saved for the end.
At the end of the walk, we saw a group of Red Silk Cotton tree flowering in full. What a show it's for us. One by one as if someone called them by name, birds started turning up. Purple sunbirds were all over the places, Pale-billed and interestingly Thick-billed flower peckers turned up. Ashy drongos, Jerdons' Leaf bird couples. So what do you do when such opportunity turns up, we made most of it like this:
What was supposed to be a 2-3 hour thing ended up as an almost full day activity. We had a snack and sat below the tree to spot birds. While my son goes around checking all the science fun things around the center, I ended up checking the insects around.
Here are some pictures of the critters we found
A very pretty heavy-bodied jumper - jumping spider
We also saw a carpenter bee lying on the ground. We picked it using the Silk cotton flowers and left it safely only to see later that the red weaver ants carrying it away !
We also saw Wild Almond Tree . It has lovely seed pods.
The highlight of the day for me was thisstick insect Indian Grass Mantis
We were fooled by it's appearance thinking it's a stick insect. Returning to Bangalore, iNaturalist helped us id it correctly and it also prompted me to create the missing wikipedia page for the species. It's scientific name Schizocephala translates to "split head" depicting it's head. Those lovely eyes and head makes a pretty insect.
The Regional Science Centre in Tirupati is a wonderful place for kids and adults to spend time. It's thoughtfully setup. Younger kids will love the dinosaur exhibits with sounds besides some experiments, middle school or high school kids will enjoy the exhibits for sure.
I will strongly recommend it to anyone visiting Tirupati, Its worth spending half-a-day here. The small Planetarium is nice and the entrance fee is very less. Besides, the beautiful campus set at foothills of Tirumala hills, barely 500 mts from Alipiri, attracts lot of birds, insects. The staff too are enthusiastic that they keep organising activities and had an active club of children and adults. Overall it's a must visit place in Tirupati.
After doing the traditional darshan and rituals I managed to squeeze in some time to do little briding and some insect clicks
We saw a huge banyan tree where the kids were happy to play.
A bee and some wasps too turned up.
Post returning to Tirupati, I managed to volunteer to take a group of children at Regional Science Centre for a nature walk. We spotted some orioles, ashy drongos and went around the centre. As they saw the best things were saved for the end.
At the end of the walk, we saw a group of Red Silk Cotton tree flowering in full. What a show it's for us. One by one as if someone called them by name, birds started turning up. Purple sunbirds were all over the places, Pale-billed and interestingly Thick-billed flower peckers turned up. Ashy drongos, Jerdons' Leaf bird couples. So what do you do when such opportunity turns up, we made most of it like this:
What was supposed to be a 2-3 hour thing ended up as an almost full day activity. We had a snack and sat below the tree to spot birds. While my son goes around checking all the science fun things around the center, I ended up checking the insects around.
Here are some pictures of the critters we found
A very pretty heavy-bodied jumper - jumping spider
A lynx spider
We also saw a carpenter bee lying on the ground. We picked it using the Silk cotton flowers and left it safely only to see later that the red weaver ants carrying it away !
Here are the kids and adults looking up the silk cotton tree show
We also saw Wild Almond Tree . It has lovely seed pods.
The highlight of the day for me was this
We were fooled by it's appearance thinking it's a stick insect. Returning to Bangalore, iNaturalist helped us id it correctly and it also prompted me to create the missing wikipedia page for the species. It's scientific name Schizocephala translates to "split head" depicting it's head. Those lovely eyes and head makes a pretty insect.
The Regional Science Centre in Tirupati is a wonderful place for kids and adults to spend time. It's thoughtfully setup. Younger kids will love the dinosaur exhibits with sounds besides some experiments, middle school or high school kids will enjoy the exhibits for sure.
I will strongly recommend it to anyone visiting Tirupati, Its worth spending half-a-day here. The small Planetarium is nice and the entrance fee is very less. Besides, the beautiful campus set at foothills of Tirumala hills, barely 500 mts from Alipiri, attracts lot of birds, insects. The staff too are enthusiastic that they keep organising activities and had an active club of children and adults. Overall it's a must visit place in Tirupati.
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