Birdwatching At Coorg – A Recent Guest’s List Of Species

Garima, a recent guest at Chettimani, Coorg, who’s an avid birder – and whose event we’d been part of earlier – spotted 50+ species just around the property!

Here’s a few links to her checklists on eBird:

http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID=S22606739
http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID=S22606788
http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID=S22606794
http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID=S22603656
http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID=S22606803

The Malabar Trogon, we’re told, was a special catch! Here’s a few shots she captured

Malabar Trogon
Lesser Yellownape
Long-billed Sunbird

For those interested, here’s an exhaustive list of birds spotted there:

Eastern/Western Cattle Egret – Bubulcus ibis Crested Serpent-Eagle – Spilornis cheela eagle sp. – Haliaeetus/Aquila sp. White-breasted Waterhen – Amaurornis phoenicurus Red-wattled Lapwing – Vanellus indicus snipe sp. – Gallinago sp. Spotted Dove – Streptopelia chinensis Greater Coucal – Centropus sinensis Little Swift (Indian House Swift) – Apus affinis Malabar Trogon – Harpactes fasciatus Malabar Grey Hornbill – Ocyceros griseus Malabar Barbet (Crimson-throated Barbet) – Psilopogon malabaricus White-cheeked Barbet (Small Green Barbet) – Psilopogon viridis Lesser Yellownape – Picus chlorolophus Rufous Woodpecker – Micropternus brachyurus falcon sp. – Falco sp. Plum-headed Parakeet – Psittacula cyanocephala Malabar Parakeet (Blue-winged Parakeet) – Psittacula columboides Vernal Hanging-Parrot – Loriculus vernalis Bar-winged Flycatcher-shrike – Hemipus picatus Ashy Woodswallow – Artamus fuscus Common Iora – Aegithina tiphia Orange Minivet – Pericrocotus flammeus Long-tailed Shrike – Lanius schach Indian Golden Oriole – Oriolus kundoo Hair-crested Drongo (Spangled Drongo) – Dicrurus hottentottus Greater Racket-tailed Drongo – Dicrurus paradiseus Indian/Eastern Jungle Crow (Large-billed Crow) – Corvus macrorhynchos Red-rumped Swallow – Cecropis daurica Velvet-fronted Nuthatch – Sitta frontalis Flame-throated Bulbul (Ruby-throated Bulbul) – Pycnonotus gularis Red-whiskered Bulbul – Pycnonotus jocosus Yellow-browed Bulbul – Iole indica Green Warbler – Phylloscopus nitidus Greenish Warbler – Phylloscopus trochiloides Booted Warbler – Iduna caligata Blyth’s Reed-Warbler – Acrocephalus dumetorum Plain Prinia – Prinia inornata Oriental White-eye – Zosterops palpebrosus Dark-fronted Babbler – Rhopocichla atriceps Indian Scimitar-Babbler – Pomatorhinus horsfieldii Puff-throated Babbler – Pellorneum ruficeps Oriental Magpie-Robin – Copsychus saularis Malabar Whistling-Thrush – Myophonus horsfieldii Indian Blackbird – Turdus simillimus Southern Hill Myna – Gracula indica Jungle Myna – Acridotheres fuscus Nilgiri Flowerpecker – Dicaeum concolor Purple-rumped Sunbird – Leptocoma zeylonica Crimson-backed Sunbird – Leptocoma minima Long-billed Sunbird (Loten’s Sunbird) – Cinnyris lotenius Little Spiderhunter – Arachnothera longirostra Grey Wagtail – Motacilla cinerea

What a great start to a week. Thank you!

The last weekend was a long one – and we were pretty packed across locations. It was pretty tight, with some last minute cancellations and bookings too. We almost ran out of sheets at a couple of properties, despite a huge extra inventory  (partly thanks to the rains)!

But Monday made it all so worth it!

This ->

[Guest’s name] and I would like to thank all at Linger cottages, Coorg, for the phenomenal holiday we had. The property is beautiful beyond belief, and the splendid solitude was such a manna to city dwellers like us. We loved the food, the walks, the sit-out meals, the songs of the birds and the toads, the unbelievably green landscape, and the brilliant light works of the million fireflies.

A special thank you to Harish and Uday. Their ever-smiling faces made the delightful stay even more pleasant. Uday was kind enough to take us to see the Cauvery in the rain.

We would highly recommend your place to friends and family, and would love to come visit other Linger holiday spots.

Thank you,

[Guest at the Upper Cottage in Chettimani, Coorg]

Then, more ->

We got back yesterday after having a great time.
I must compliment you on the way the place is setup !
Thanks again,
[Guest at Bavikodla, Gokarna]
And apart from this, one phone call about a happy time at the campsite in the Devarayanadurga Hills, and one more delighted response from a couple at Gokarna.  Last weekend’s guests at Gokarna had called in a couple of days earlier to tell us it was one of the best beach vacations they’ve ever taken!
(There’s surely some constructive feedback – and as always – plans are already being drawn up and instructions being sent out to respond to those by way of process, infra and other fixes.)
We’re facing an uphill challenge for gathering the bottles we need to deliver to replace plastic bottles – that saw a much-larger-than-anticipated-response. But despite that, accounting hassles and other minor battles we’re fighting, we’re on cloud nine!
Thanks everyone – this feeling is a huge reward!
And may be humbly submit – “Yay, baby!”

Gift a Linger Vacation

A quiet, relaxed time away from the city, cellphones, over coffee, conversations and in places as pretty as God made them (we try to keep them as much like that as possible) is one of the best gifts you can give someone.

We did this recently for a couple of our friends – and they

Gift-A-Vacation at Linger. Send us the name, occasion, etc, and we’ll print a nice customized invite and deliver it to whoever you’d like to gift it to.

Options: One night/2 day, 2 night/3 days. Pick weekdays/weekends. No extra costs. Additionally, add a bottle of wine, a card, chocolates. At any of our properties – Chettimani (Coorg), Balur Estate (Chikmagalur) or even the soon-to-be-live tented cottages at Devarayanadurga which is a quick drive from Bangalore.

?

You can pick a vacation for specific dates, or with validity for a whole year where the exact dates could be blocked with a call/email to us a little in advance.

So if you’ve been thinking of this special gift you want to give someone, call/mail us at stay@lingerleisure.in or +91-95900-50001

 

The Monsoon and Coming Soon!

At Linger, we’ve been partial towards local construction styles and materials. The tough one is to blend that with the needs and expectations of those who come in from the city. The monsoon kicked in late, but made up for the delay in sporadic, intense bursts of rain. We had the Cauvery come almost up to the fields below Mud Cottage a couple of times already – and the ferocity of the showers moved the tiles around a little leading to a drip or two (I’m still amazed how well those Mangalore Tiles can handle serious rains – I have seen many a concrete room seep much more for much gentler rain in Bangalore!) A similar issue at the Cottage at Balur seemed to auto-correct itself 🙂

But the prettiness of the monsoon is sooo worth it. The mist, the sound of the rain falling, the cicadas and the lusher greening of an impossibly green place are a magical experience.

As we get past the rainiest months of the monsoon, we’re looking at expanding capacity at both places. The Cardamom Suites – earlier a storage area for the crop and later converted to staff quarters that now lie unused – at Balur – are being professionally redone to make them comfortable, pretty even as we preserve their feel. We’re also hatching plans for a Cabin-on-the-lake and a complete campsite by the smaller lake – with its own bikes, kitchen,  benches, and maybe even its own collection of books.

At Coorg there’s a laterite cottage up the hill amidst the coffee, and we’re even dreaming up a Tree House in the wooded part of the property. Based on suggestions from guests, there’s more rugs, many more lamps for soft lights at night, (already added) more easy chairs, and of course more books as always!

And finally – there will soon be an all new option where you can go do nothing. Its just over a 100kms from Bangalore, in hills that define the region’s landscape – dotted with hills, boulders, lakes and with a breeze almost a permanent feature! There’s old temples atop hills to visit, trails to run and ride on, a Blackbuck sanctuary to explore, and old fort – and farming and food processing to learn about! Of course, there’ll always be books and chai to keep your mind off all this activity 🙂 There’s even a swimming pool!

Look forward to a lot more folks Lingering this winter.

Farm More Important Things

Right from the time we started work at Chettimani, we wanted to grow food around there – its a very satisfying feeling to be a producer and not merely a consumer. Apart from the coffee, there’s little we have done by way of effort so far. This year, the hope is to change that, and grow some banana, and add more pepper vines, and maybe even some paddy.

Nature’s blessed the place with natural produce – and there’s jackfruit, butterfruit, kaipuli, guavas and a bunch of other stuff with no inputs from our end. It feels awesome to be part of such a fertile, green, productive place.

If any of you would like to come over and get involved in any farm related work, let us know. Its a joy we’d love to share.