I was expecting the slopes to be densely vegetated in the monsoon, but there is still barely any undergrowth. In many places it so weathered that climbing is difficult. There was a huge abundance of pill-millipedes and some other millipedes, a few tailless scorpions, a few centipedes, but overall seemed very species-dry. Decent bird activity, considering it was around 10-12 in the morning. Another thing I noticed is that the trees there (I could only identify 2 species - Adina cordifolia and Xylia xylocarapa) are much lesser in girth on the slope, but towards the top, they are thicker and there is more understory. I guess the slope is just weathered with little biomass/productivity - nothing that is strange. But then all the ‘productivity’ should be washed into the valley below, unfortunately the valleys are now under shifting cultivation or villages. For context, the trek starts at 600m and climbs upto 900m at the top within 1.2 km distance.
But the top had the same dark-starry patterned Hemidactylus (?) that we had seen in Deomali when I had gone with Madhura and Aritro. Very similar landscape, grasses with rocks. Found around 5 of these geckos under rocks. And a huge number of centipedes.
The geckos are most likely to be a relative of H. parvimaculatus, and within the brookii complex, but might be interesting to check genetically? An Eastern Ghats gecko sp restricted to mountain tops of south Odisha? Also saw a Blind Snake, which doesn't look a lot like Brahminy Blind Snake.
The top has very stunted grass growth which isn't very ideal for Eutropis beddomei. The grasses around the rocks in E. beddomei habitat are much taller. Nowhere to hide outside the rocks in this patch, which is not ideal for a grass swimmer. But a promising patch that should be searched again, more effort at the table top. Possible habitat for Calamaria Reed Snake.
