Periyar National Park/Tiger Reserve is situated in Western Ghats of Kerala. Periyar was named the first tiger reserve in Kerala under project tiger.

This wildlife sanctuary is home to tigers and a significant elephant population, as well as rare lion-tailed macaques, sambar deer, leopards, Indian gaur, etc. Interestingly spotted deers are not seen here.

Periyar is well known for its boat safari and treks. For the boat safari we parked our vechicle at the forest check point and then took the government vechicle until the so called “boat landing” place. Couple of kilometres ride into the jungle, we reached the “boat landing” terminal.

The safari duration was about 1.5 hours and it was very scenic. The forest was lush green and one could see the mountains on all sides. We were able to see good number of mammals (gaur, sambhar deer, nilgiri langur, wild boar) and also turtles, monitor lizard, etc. We also spotted wooly necked stocks, white belled and rufous treepie, pheasant tailed jacana, cormorants and many more during the boat safari. This is one place where you can easily find herds of Sambhar deer. Generally they are very shy and seen in very small groups elsewhere.

There are different trekking routes around periyar. Starting from half a day to couple of days treks are available, you can choose those based on your interest. There are specific trails for birders as well which are very rewarding. For more than half a day’s trek a forest gaurd with guns will be accompanying the trekkers.

I choose a trek called the “Green trail”, it’s a 3 hour program about 8km walk into the reserve forest. Starting point was Bamboo groove at 7am in the morning. Periyar consists of tropical evergreen, moist deciduous and also grasslands. You will be given with intro about the forest and ofcourse the leech prove socks to wear on. Leeches are there to creep up undoubtedly.

                    Wayand Laughing Thrush

                   Common Hawk Cuckoo

We had lots of suprise installed, soon after entering the forest saw “Wayand laughing trush”, this was a lifer for me. Then saw the Brain fewer bird – “common hawk cuckoo”, Malabar whistling trush with its pleasant whistling music and lots of Malabar parakeets. Little further into the trail we saw scats of wild dog and lots of fresh elephant dung. Guide kept explaining how he sighted tigers and leopards many times in this trail and sloth bears too.

                               Barking Deer

Soon spotted a herd of wild gaurs and since we were on foot, kind of camouflaged, a barking deer slowly started moving closer to us. For the first I saw a barking deer so close. Within few minutes it disappeared and it started giving an alarm call.

                                Brown Fish Owl

Then found a huge Crested Serpant eagle take off from hardly few metres away from us. Little later in our trail a Brown Fish Owl took off in similar fashion. On both occasions they were on ground and then took off to go sit on the tree.

                  Stripe necked Mangoose

Stripe necked mangoose was litterly couple of metres away from us and was able to get a good sight of it.

                            Bicoloured Frog

Malabar Bicoloured frog endemic to this region, saw them as well. A small pond near by had lot of tadpoles of it and generally tadpoles are little bigger in size.

Towards end of the trail saw an old tiger kill. Tiger had killed a gaur and the bone remains were seen at that place. Overall this trail kept me engaged through out and guide a tribal person who works for forest dept was very informative as well.