India: Ibis Flying Towards the Lakes of the City... • We Blog The World

The beauty of waking up inordinately early is that you see things you would otherwise miss: I routinely scare bats from trees putting my mat out to dry after practice and one morning, walking home, I looked up to see a flock of ibis. I was reminded, via the latest Michael Ondaatje novel The Cat’s Table, (which I finished in 3 days last week), that if you’re in the desert and thirsty, look to see which way the birds are flying to find water.

The ibis were most certaily flying toward the lakes of the city. There are three lakes of note in Mysore, Karanji, Kukkaranahalli Lake, and Lingabudi Lake. Kukkarnahalli, near Mysore University has been a favorite lake to walk around on previous visits. Some people go their to run and it’s also a nice place to see birds. I’ve yet to get there this trip and three different people have told me it’s been closed due to… cheetah sightings! How cool is that? I’d love to see a cheetah, albeit I’d rather not be killed by one.

The ibis were most certainly flying toward the lakes of the city. There are three lakes of note in Mysore, Karanji, Kukkaranahalli Lake, and Lingabudi Lake. Kukkarnahalli, near Mysore University has been a favorite lake to walk around on previous visits. Some people go their to run and it’s also a nice place to see birds. I’ve yet to get there this trip and three different people have told me it’s been closed due to… cheetah sightings! How cool is that? I’d love to see a cheetah, albeit I’d rather not be killed by one.

And I always kind of laugh at big cat warnings — in Boulder, popular park trails were often closed after mountain lion sightings, and Berkeley has its share of cats prowling through town — not because I don’t think they’re of real danger, but they’re probably always around.

It’s just when someone sees them, they’re threat becomes more potent. Kukkaranahalli Lake also has crocodiles so it’s clearly a lot more wild and wooly than it appears.

Saturday, I noticed a sign for a Bird Sanctuary while driving through town so Sunday led to the entrance of the Karanji Lake, on the outskirts of Mysore, not far from the zoo or the new, open-but-still-being-constructed Mega Mall. Karanji Lake is the centerpiece of the Sanctuary’s action and there we saw the aforementioned ibis in a tree as well as herons, egrets, bee-eaters, eagles, peacocks, the Indian equivalent of a bittern, ducks, cormorants, and fish. It was lovely, even if, as foreigners, our entrance fee was doubled and a tariff was placed on cameras. So be it. It felt for a few hours we were far from the city.

Deborah Crooks

Deborah Crooks (www.DeborahCrooks.com) is a writer, performing songwriter and recording artist based in San Francisco whose lyric driven and soul-wise music has drawn comparison to Lucinda Williams, Chrissie Hynde and Natalie Merchant.

Singing about faith, love and loss, her lyrics are honed by a lifetime of writing and world travel while her music draws on folk, rock, Americana and the blues. She released her first EP “5 Acres” in 2003 produced by Roberta Donnay, which caught the attention of Rocker Girl Magazine, selecting it for the RockerGirl Discoveries Cd. In 2007, she teamed up with local producer Ben Bernstein to complete “Turn It All Red” Ep, followed by 2008’s “Adding Water to the Ashes” CD, and a second full-length CD “2010. She’s currently working on a third CD to be released in 2013.

Deborah’s many performance credits include an appearance at the 2006 Millennium Music Conference, the RockerGirl Magazine Music Convention, IndieGrrl, at several of the Annual Invasion of the GoGirls at SXSW in Austin, TX, the Harmony Festival and 2009’s California Music Fest, MacWorld 2010, Far West Fest and many other venues and events. She toured the Northwest as part “Indie Abundance Music, Money & Mindfulness” (2009) with two other Bay Area artists, and followed up with “The Great Idea Tour of the Southwest in March 2010 with Jean Mazzei.