A conservation reserve in India denotes protected area owned by the Government, where communities may earn a subsistence. A conservation reserve is different from a national park or a wildlife sanctuary. As per Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Jayamangali is a conservation reserve with a overall area of 3.2328 sq.km. This will give you an idea of how small the reserve is and what one can expect here. Farm lands are available very close to the reserve and Blackbucks can be spotted in the farm lands too.
It is located at Tumkur district of Karnataka and is around 120 kms from Bangalore. One has to reach here real early to catch a glimpse of the blackbucks. Its suggested to be there by sunrise. To reach the reserve, one has to take a detour from the tar road.
Mostly the roads leading here are good. And since we were traveling early morning, we didn’t witness much traffic on our way to the reserve. After the reserve we had breakfast in a small shop in Andhra and went on our way to explore Penukonda fort and then Lepakshi.
We had started early and reached this place by around 6.45 AM, the right time to watch a sunrise. We witnessed the sun rise when we took a deviation from the main road and entered the offroad.
We spotted couple of blackbucks. They were quite shy and disappeared when they spotted us. We had to switch off the songs playing in our car and went really slow to spot them. There are multiple diversions in the road. If you keep going straight you go to a abandoned building and if you keep going after that you end up in the other side of the reserve. Since the reserve is small in size, its recommended to take the branch roads and explore the place before exiting the reserve.
One can combine this reserve with Lepakshi or Madhugiri Fort to make it a one day trip from Bangalore.
The Buffalo Rider 