Episodes of Lake Marathon: 03 Sathyamangala Lake Hassan

Some one has rightly said that the "time wasted at the lake is time well spent". Hi viewers welcome to What's around us to explore! Today I am giving a walk through of the 3rd lake I visited in the year 2022. So here we go!

On a cold, breezy Saturday morning I made a visit to one of the popular lakes of Hassan district of Karnataka, India and it is named as "Sathyamangala Lake"! It is one of the biggest lake of Hassan found in the city, this is actually my second visit to the lake but this time I had an adventure to make! This time I was not alone, I had my sister in law with me. The lake pathway was under construction so I had to take two wheeler to cover the entire lake.

Sathyamangala Lake is found on the Sathyamangala of Hassan, almost to the outskirts of the city and covers around 34 acres. The park is one of the most popular one in the city, good for walking, practicing yoga and meditations. During my previous visit, almost an year ago, the park was crowded with people walking and jogging, this time I could hardly find anyone. May be because the path was under construction.

Sathyamangala Lake, Hassan

When we entered the lake, it was peaceful and silent. Only sound we could hear was that of a breeze and chirping birds. We were shivering and swaying with cold breeze, hardly were able to stand still and take pics. Yet I have managed to capture some of the moments.

There were lots of chirping leaf birds hiding near the bushes behind us. I could spot red vented bulbuls, red whiskered bulbul, bush chats and purple sunbirds. There was a shrub which had many hanging nests of weaver birds.

Weaver bird nest

This bulbul bird was not so happy to pose to the camera, lol. There were couple of them in the shrubs happily singing and finding prey.

Bulbul

If you see the lake, you just feel like seeing it. It is so pure and calm. I thought that I may not spot any usual lake birds here, but I was proved wrong. A common coot was paddling near me, I thought oh, there might be only one coot here, but there were plenty of them on the other side.

Common coot

Then we continued our journey, the road was narrow and slippery after rain, without bike we couldn't have covered the most of the parts of lake.

Path of the lake

We saw an island in the middle of the lake and there I spotted plenty of birds in it.

First I saw this gracious median egret walking all alone near the small land patch of the lake. Later on we spotted many such egrets found almost every where in the lake.

Egret

Then my eyes caught a lonely Indian cormorant, again, it was not the only one bird of its kind, there were a big herds of them.

Indian cormorant

I would have missed this scene if I had not made it to this lake. This is probably, one of the best shot of mine in the episodes of lake marathon. It was so delightful watching those cormorants perching on the tree branches and drying up their feathers wide open. This is one of the behavior shown by the shags and cormorants.

Indian cormorants perching on the branches of a tree

Next we saw a group of grey Herons resting on the trees. It was looking like a painted dots, had to zoom in a lot to capture them.

Grey Herons

Then there was this lonely bird slowing peeking from the bushes, and it was a purple heron.

Purple heron

A standalone tree in the middle of the lake had multiple bird nest in it. Couldn't figure out which birds' nests they were.

Nests of some birds

This little blue feathered bird literally played hide and seek with me. This bird is so shy that I missed to shot it twice. One day I am going to take a good snap of this white throated Kingfisher!

White throated Kingfisher

There are couple of raptor birds like kite species, found one soaring high above. I haven't mastered capturing any birds during its flight.

Black kite

Other than these birds, the lake is home for pond herons, crows, mynas and other common birds. The island looks very wild and unexplored, surely, it is more rich in diversity than the peripheral region of the lake. I will try to explore more during my next visit to this lake.

An outlook of the island

Flora:

The lake is surrounded by rich flora. Probably it has the most floral diversity compared to the previous lake I had visited.

The lake was almost covered with Nymphea (lotus) plants. There were few buds of lotuses around.

Nymphea species

Grasses and Mimosa pudica

This is the plant which I used to see in Mysore long back when I was a kid, eventually it got disappeared from the city area. Nowadays we can just see them near the villages and that too rare. I didn't know the name of this plant that time and neither asked my elders because those days they hardly even noticed such wild plants. Usually this plant is seen near the small lakes and fertile soil. This plant is called as bush morning glory belongs to the Ipomoea species.

Ipomoea carnia (bush morning glory)

Lantana camera was seen in most of the regions. Many varieties and inflorescence colours were found, which is not actually a good sign. Lantana can be invading the native species and it's better to get rid of this plant as

much as possible.

Lantana camera

Tridax is another common herb found almost everywhere in India. It is called as grand mothers head or aggi thale in Kannada. It belongs to asteraceae family and used to cure excessive bleeding of wounds.

Tridax procumbens

Amaranthus

This Ipomoea species is commonly called as violet morning glory. There are plenty of Ipomoea species and most of them are commonly known as morning glory.

Ipomoea species

Mirabilis jalapa is commonly called as 4'o clock plant. It is used to study incomplete dominance concept. This plant occurs in many varieties in which the inflorescence colour varies from red, pink, purple, yellow, saffron , white and many more. Again, I hardly get to see this plant in Mysore these days.

Mirabilis jalapa

Sonchus oleraceus is known to be a traditional medicinal herb known to treat inflammation and other health issues.

Sonchus oleraceus (Common sowthistle)

Lucus aspera commonly known as thumbai. This plant is sometimes grown in pots for it's fragrance.

Lucus aspera

Jamaican Cherry tree, or gasgase mara in Kannada is an edible cherry tree. The tree is home for many birds and mammals like squirrels and bats. If I would have visited this place during evening time I would have definitely spotted some bats.

Muntungia calabura (Jamaican Cherry tree)

Thunbergia alata

Ipomoea species (morning glory)

I wasn't aware of this plant so far and I am seeing this for the first time.

Mimosa diplotricha

Cucurbita species

Alternanthera sessilis

This lake deserves attention and care! despite the popularity and species richness this lake has, I feel like this lake has been neglected. If the lake is restored there is a chance of this lake becoming the most diverse wetland and probably can invite migratory birds.

It's sad to say, but I saw some fish dead near the shore. Wish some could have been treated and saved. I would request the residuals and localities not to dump any garbage into this lake as it has many precious life found in it.