Iruppu

Posted by Nbhat

April 15th morning we got up early around 6:00 AM. The plan was to visit the river nearby and do some bird watching. It was Som's new year and he made couple of calls and then we headed towards the paddy fields, through the coffe plantation slopes. On seeing the holes in the paddy fields, Som backed off. Prem and I crossed the paddy fields to reach the river. Without any clear view and it being pretty small, river did not enthuse much. We started to spot the birds and soon we discovered that our binocular was not helping much. Though Prem could distinctly hear 15 bird calls, we could not spot many. Prem identified flying muniyas and there were parakeets.

Lakshman Tirtha Falls at Iruppu From Iruppu

We noted down a balck bird little larger than sparrow. Back in the guest house we searched for the bird in Salim Ali's Birds of India. Then we thought it might be a wag tail, but we did not remeber seeing a white patch over the eye. Later in the day we saw the bird again and noted that there was small white patch on the wing. Finally I identifed bird as Pied Bush Chat after looking at the Common Birds book.
We we came back to the guesthouse only to realize that balcony might have been a better place for watching birds. Prem took some good photographs of the sun rise. We had Akki Roti and coconut chutney for the breakfast. Som again got the idea of visiting Dubare and Golden temple on the way back.
So there was one more course correction in the plans, now it was Iruppu, Dubare, Nisargdham and Golden temple. Iruppu was around 11 km from the place we stayed, we had to move around 3km on Gonikoppa road and then take left(There is big banner with the photograph of Iruppu falls) and go another 8km (?). The vehicles need to be parked at the temple and there is a walk for 1/2 km to reach the falls. There is a bamboo platform on which one can walk and sit right below the falls formed by Lakshman Thirth river. The water is very cold. Everybody in Coorg had advised to take bath out here. Only Som took the advise.

Iruppu is home to variety of rare butterfly species such as Malabar banded peacock, paris peacock etc.. Above is the picture of Papilio Budha or Malabar banded Peacock From Iruppu

While Som was finding a place to change and I managed to take couple of snaps of butterflies. From 5 km from the falls there is Narimallai Guest house which can be only reached by walk. We climbed down and had some cool drinks to combat "air bubbles coming from everywhere" (Copyright Som-2006) and set off to our next destination Dubare.

Update : Aug 9 2008 . By mistake I had claimed it as Malabar banded peacock. But it is not. Look at the comments for picture of malabar banded peacock.