Arrived
Yesterday my wife and I arrived in Pondicherry in South India. The first birds greeting us after a night in the taxi were House Crows, followed by a passing Brahminy Kite.
This is my fith trip to India, although not always only birding. My wife does Bharata Natyam, an Indian dance, so she will take lessons here. I will do some birding here and in the north, Gujarat is on the itinerary and the Melghat Tiger Reserve (for Forest Owlet).
In this first two days we organized a lot and met some old friends. Birding was not much but I saw quite some species. Barn Swallows, Black Kites, Common Myna, Purple-rumped and Loten's Sunbird in the park in front of the hotel, White-browed Bulbul, Yellow-billed Babblers and Rufous Treepie in Auroville and some terns (Gull-billed, Common, Caspian and Lesser Crested) and Brown-headed Gulls on sea.
Tomorrow I will go to Gingee. The target bird is the endemic Yellow-throated Bulbul.
More to come
Andre
My India offers some of the most fascinating trip to India packages for the summer vacations, which can be availed by anyone. whether you are traveling overseas for business, pleasure or study, the best way to make a trip carefree and relaxing is to prevent problems before they happen. If you are bore from your normal daily routine life and want to make to be relaxed for some time then you must make your trip to India.
Well, yesterday I went to Gingee (1:20h with taxi). I started near the fort at the Hanuman temple (easy to find, follow the monkeys). I took a path into the thorn forest and heard my first bulbuls after some minutes. Alas, the were White-broweds, but some minutes later the first Yellow-throated appeared. They proved to be very common and very easy to see here, sometimes singing out in the open on a rock. A Sirkeer Malkoha was also a nice addition and a lifer for me.
I saw a Francolin dissapearing and followed it along a small path. It was never to be seen and remained unidentified, but the path was a good choice. A Blue Rock-thrush and an Indian Robin were singing opposite each other on the rocks, some Short-toed Eagles flew overhead and after checking a white marked rock I found an Indian Eagle-Owl! That was a nice find and a surprise.
After some time I went back to the Hanuman temple and to the Inner Fort. There you have to pay an entry fee (5 Rupees for Indians, 100 for Foreigners) and I had some discussion about my tripod and scope, as still cameras were not allowed inside. I had 14 Rupees in my pocket and so a scope fee of 14 Rupees was created (what a coincidence). Inside I had a nice Spotted Owlet and going up the hill I found a Shaheen Falcon (the local subspecies of Peregrine, but looking pretty different with a rufous belly), nicely posing.
Back to Pondicherry it was raining incredibly heavy, we even had to stop a moment with the car. So today was no birding, but preparing for my Gujarat trip.
And Alice: Don't come here in summer. It's just much to hot!
Andre