Oriental Honey Buzzard, Vaduthala

Just when I thought that my holiday to India was over, I came across this juvenile oriental honey buzzard just 3km from the house at Vaduthala. Also today but not photographed, an Indian grey mongoose.

Pallas's Gull by rickshaw

The temperature was around 35'C this afternoon, but it was my last chance to do some birding in India and more to the point my last chance to see Pallas's gull, so I decided to join the mad dogs and go out in the midday sun. 

In recent weeks Pallas's gulls had been reported at Puthuvypin beach, about 15km from the family home, so I decided to call on the services of the friendly auto rickshaw driver Deepan who is a favourite of the family because he is so reliable. From my point of view he's also good because he's a decent birder and carries a camera with him, and is quite happy to stay with me and even come for a walk and engage in some birding!

A journey in a rickshaw or any other vehicle in India is always an adventure. A typical drive might include driving down a relatively narrow road with vehicles coming the other way. Suddenly with the sound of a horn the driver attempts to overtake any other vehicle who he thinks is going too slow for whatever reason, seemingly oblivious to what is coming the other way. Just as he does this a vehicle coming in the opposite direction does the same, and then from nowhere a motorbike overtakes you. A car pulls out onto the road from the left, causing the vehicle you are overtaking to swerve into the middle towards you and a pedestrian decides that now is a good time to cross the road and just walks out. More motorbikes pull out from the right and unexpectedly another motorbike overtakes on the inside between you and the vehicle you are overtaking. Finally just as you think that against all of the odds you're going to make it, a bus coming the other way pulls out as well. Everybody is in a rush until they block your route and then they move at snail pace, nobody stops to wait for a safe moment to pull out, they just go for it, and zebra crossings..... it's actually a waste of time and money to paint a zebra crossing on the road, in fact they are probably amongst the most dangerous places to cross because they give the unsuspecting pedestrian a false sense of security. The number of times I saw desperate pedestrians on a zebra crossing, stranded in the middle of a busy road, and nobody stops for them. If you stop at best your liable to a be bombarded with horns from behind. Interestingly the horns aren't usually used in an aggressive way as they often are in the UK, they are used as they should be, to warn other road users that you are here. Trouble is, once the warning has been issued, then you're on your own, you had your chance to get out of the way. Dual carriageways are just as bad only different. A two lane carriageway might have three cars driving side by side, as well as five or six motorbikes and other motorbikes weaving in and out. More often than not the motorbike driver has a helmet on, but bizarrely his wife and young kids are on the back, often riding side saddle, with no helmets. Chaos is the only word for it, yet I didn't see a single accident while I was in India and to be honest it all seemed to flow quite nicely!

Indian Ocean Humpback Dolphins, Munamban, Kerala, India

At Munamban harbour today we saw at least 10 Indian Ocean humpback dolphins. These wonderful animals are closely related to the Australian humpback dolphins that I saw in 2018 and are just magical and enigmatic. They are pale grey in colour with a white / pinkish tip to the dorsal fin and instantly identifiable. Or so it would seem....

There is considerable uncertainty surrounding humpback dolphins in the Indian Ocean. Animals on the west coast of India (including Munamban) are thought to be Indian Ocean humpbacks, whilst those on the east coast are thought to be a different species, Indo-Pacific humback dolphins. However there is also a sub-species of Indian Ocean humpbacks, ssp. lentiginosa, which occurs on the east coast in the Bay of Bengal, which may in fact be a third species (Carwardine 2020).

So based on location it seems pretty clear, these must be Indian Ocean humpbacks? Well possibly... there are a few problems though. In the field it was immediately clear that there were two different colour types present the first was pale grey as in the animal at the top of the post, but the others were dark grey almost brown in colour, as is the case with animal below.

Chinese nets, Vypin

Chinese nets are a way of fishing in India. Basically a huge net is lowered into the water and then after a pre-determined time they are raised again using a pulley system and hopefully the net will be full of fish, or at least have some fish to make it worthwhile. The egrets certainly think it's worthwhile, as the nets are raised they fly into them, hoping to pick off a snack sized meal.

Goodbye to Thattekad

Indian Peafowl are wild and endemic in India, and I would have been disappointed to have left the country without seeing one. Fortunately this peacock decided to put me out of my misery and performed admirably today, even posing on the Thattekad Bird sanctuary sign.

So that's the end of my very enjoyable six day visit to Thattekad, staying at Birds Song Homestay with Vinod. I can't recommend this place highly enough, the homestay was excellent, the food delicious and the guided birding provided by Vinod was exceptional. In the end I saw a total of 130 species at Thattekad including many of the endemics. Without Vinod's help I wouldn't have even been able to get to most of the sites we visited because I didn't have a car.

Indian Pitta, Salim Ali trail

My last morning at Thattekad and we went for a walk around the Salim Ali trail. As expected lots of great birds, but I was absolutely delighted when we came across this Indian Pitta. What a bird this is, and great to get the opportunity to fire off a few photos. I have seen many great birds at Thattekad in the past few days, around 130 species in total, but this bird will be a strong contender for bird of the trip when the final tally is made.

Southern Birdwing, Thattakad

Southern birdwing butterfly is the largest butterfly in India, with a wingspan up to 19cm, not much smaller than yesterdays jungle owlet! I've seen a few flying around over the last few day, but this is the first that I have seen landed.

Jungle Owlet, Thattekad

Delighted to come across this calling jungle owlet today, a tiny owl which is slightly smaller than a starling. Other highlights this afternoon included crested serpent eagle, common hawk cuckoo, Indian roller. Also a calling but not seen Indian scops owl.

I was amazed to get a photo of Loten's sunbird, they're so active and tiny, and usually buried deep in the undergrowth, but this singing male perched high up on one of the trees and allowed me to get this. You can even see the correct colours that distinguish it from purple or purple-throated, i.e. brown belly contrasting with purple breast with a green sheen to the head. It's also longer billed than those other two as well.

Black Eagles over the River Periyar

We returned to the homestay at about 10am and went our separate ways until 4pm when we will head out again when the heat has abated a little. I decided to give the bridge an hour before the serious heat set in and I'm glad I did. First off I had an oriental honey buzzard fly over, and then about 10 minute later I spotted two large eagles flying my way. Fortunately they kept going and went right over me and were clearly a couple of adult black eagles. This species has a really distinct look with wide "hands" and narrow "arms", pinching where they join the body, plus a long tail and a very black plumage. Magnificent birds and totally, unexpected. The bridge that keeps giving!

Black Baza

First thing this morning we were treated to a spectacular black baza extravaganza, with up to four birds flying around the forest canopy hunting. They prey on large insects, lizards and occasionally small birds high up in the canopy and have an odd way of flying for a raptor, which has been described as similar to crows but I prefer to call it butterfly like! Fortunately Vinod had taken me to a good vantage point where we had an unobstructed view over the tops of the trees.

According to Vinod this is very much an early morning experience. I'm not sure why that would be, but certainly they seemed to disappear after about 8:30am. Perhaps they just feed in a different way later in the day and are not so obvious. I have read that they also prey on insects and lizards on the ground, at which times they would be quite unobtrusive. 

Baza are a family of sensational and enigmatic tropical raptors, very much sought after by birdwatchers. There are five species, two in Africa and three in Asia. I've been fortunate enough to have now seen two species, these black baza and Pacific baza in tropical Australia in 2018. In a holiday of many fabulous experiences this ranks as one of the very best.

Sri Lanka Bay Owl, Thattekad, India

Oh the irony! Having told Vinod a couple of days ago that I wasn't interested in chasing owls anymore because I didn't agree with the playback and spotlights, today we came across possibly the rarest owl of the lot in broad daylight! Vinod said to me later that in his opinion my entire five day trip to Thattekad would have been worth if the only bird I had seen was Sri Lanka bay owl! 

In truth it performed in much the same way as the Sri Lanka frogmouths, it just sat there and didn't move, pretty uninspiring really, but even so, I was delighted to see it.  Also in this area, my best view so far of Loten's sunbird.

The jungle around the homestay

Yesterday Vinod had warned me against going alone into the jungle adjacent to the house and this morning I discovered why. First off we had to go into the National Park visitor centre to sign a disclaimer stating that I understood the dangers of such a venture. Then when Vinod and I headed off to the track we were to take, we were joined by a ranger who always walked 20m in front of us, apparently to make sure that we didn't unexpectedly come across some of the mammals of the jungle, not least the Asian elephants which can be very dangerous. Indeed as we walked Vinod told me a cheery story of a couple of previous guests who had gone into the woodland and been chased by elephants, and as recently as two weeks ago he'd had one in the garden of the homestay! There was certainly plenty of evidence of elephant activity, including dung and area's where they had been tearing down the vegetation to eat. When I asked him what we would do if an elephant attacked us, his response was clear, "Run".  A stray dog that was following us didn't help and Vinod was quite vociferous in his efforts to convince the dog to leave us alone, which it eventually did. Vinod explained that the dog made our situation very dangerous, because chances are if it was with us when we spotted an elephant it would bark causing the elephant to charge us. So we proceeded with caution....

River Periyar, Thattekad

So having finally cracked and rebelled against being herded around to tick as many birds as possible, I broke free this afternoon and had probably the best half day birding of the holiday, or at least since Changaram wetlands. 

Basically I did two circuits of the local area which took in the lake outside the homestay and the bridge over the River Periyar. It was at the bridge where I spent most time, probably three hours in total, in two seperate stints, it was really that good. 

Initially I had great views of my first river terns, plus whiskered terns, various egrets and a few little swifts. It was during the second stint that things really got good and I stayed until dusk. First off I had a magnificent white-bellied woodpecker fly across the river, too distant for a photo but a good view never the less. Then bizarrely a southern birdwing butterfly flew the other way along the bridge. What a butterfly that is, with a 19cm wingspan, an absolute beauty!

Sri Lanka Frogmouth again

We were up early again and headed back to the same place that we went yesterday morning, near Urulanthanni, to try to pick up a few species which we missed yesterday. In that respect we succeeded and managed to add Malabar grey hornbill, brown shrike, drongo cuckoo, shikra and oriental honey buzzard to the list, as well as getting better views of some birds, particularly heart-spotted woodpecker.

However after being pushed out of the way as I photographed the Sri Lanka frogmouth, I told Vinod that I wouldn't be leaving the area around the homestead this evening, instead I'd prefer to go birding alone in the local area. I'm at the stage where I can't bear to be anywhere near most of the cliental of the guides here, most of whom appear to have no fields skills whatsoever. The irony is these very same people probably slate twitchers, yet what they are doing is 100x worse.

Collecting Rubber

A rubber plantation at Thattekad, India. Can anybody explain to me how nearly 75 years since we put men on the moon, in an age when cars are virtually space ships and computer controlled, we are still driving around on rubber tyres which go "pop" if you drive over a nail? It's all to do with vested interests if you ask me. Just like petrol, rubber tyres could have been replaced years ago but too many people would have lost their fortunes.

Pity about the pitta - non-birding by spotlight and playback

A slightly depressing evening today, and one that I didn't really want to happen. I'm genuinely not interested in ticking off all of the Western Ghat endemics and I don't need to see every bird that Thattekad  has to offer. What I want to do is go birding at Thattekad with a guide and see what we see and not worry about what we don't see, but unfortunately ticking as many Indian species as possible seems to be so engrained with all of the guides here that it's very difficult for them to break out of that mode.

So today we ended up joining other groups of birders at dusk and trying to coax out owls and nightjars with playback, and then search for them with spotlights. It's not just the tactics used to see the birds that I don't like, I also don't want to be with groups of other British or European birders making idle chit chat.

 

Anyway, as dusk approached I was about 20m  away from the pack trying to keep myself to myself when I miraculously spotted an Indian pitta in the undergrowth. Well deserved I felt because I was the only person birding apart from the guides and I wasn't even sure about them most of the time, they all appeared to be just waiting for it to go dark. This was my first ever pitta, I missed them in  Australia so I was pretty chuffed to say the least and it was a decent view in the fading light. But now what to do? Do I tell the others and invite a mad dash over to me no doubt scaring away the pitta, or do I keep it to myself. I decided, I beckoned them over and said "pitta". As expected a mad dash ensued and the first person there shone a spotlight in the area and the bird vanished never to be seen again. Great. I was sorry I'd told them. Still, for me at least it was a fabulous sighting, a long dreamed of bird.

Sri Lanka Frogmouth and Great Indian Hornbill, Thattekad

We were up early and out by 6:15am this morning and drove out to an area near Urulanthanni campsite, and then had a short walk uphill to an open rocky area which gave us wide open views of the surrounding forest. 

The place was heaving with birds, most of which were new to me, but two species stood supreme, clear joint winners of the bird of the day award, Sri Lanka Frogmouth and Great Indian Hornbill. 

I'm assuming that nobody comes on this blog to look at the great photos, because they're as rare as hens teeth, so with that in mind I'll continue with this post and perhaps even take the odd liberty.

Sri Lanka Frogmouth we found roosting in a tree close to a river. They were much smaller than the frogmouths I have seen previously in Australia, tawny and Papuan, but on the other hand they where much more nicely marked. As ever with frogmouths, they didn't really do much except look bizarre.

The same can't be said of the great Indian hornbill! Vinod had previously told me that they were quite rare in the area, but at the spot where we parked the car we heard one calling distantly. I jokingly said perhaps it will fly over later, not really expecting that it would. 

We'd been on the rocky outcrop for about two hours, when Vinod cried out "Great Indian Hornbill flying over!" and there it was. A magnificent bird with spectacular markings and huge, with a wingspan of 152cm, slightly larger than a black kite. Of course my camera was in my bag so I didn't bother trying to photograph it, I just contented myself with the wonderful sight of what will probably be the bird of the holiday.

Not my photo sadly.

Alpine Swifts and jack fruit

Mid afternoon I whiled away a few hours on the balcony or in the grounds of the property watching the wildlife, which included macaques and giant squirrels. Overhead I spotted two alpine swifts and three crested goshawks, whilst in the bushes were male and female yellow-browed bulbul, white-cheeked barbets, Nilgiri flowerpecker and golden-fronted leafbird. On the pond, white-throated kingfisher and green bee-eaters.

Bonnet Macaques, Birds Song Homestay

I was pleased to see this baby macaque today.

Dr Salim Ali Bird trail, Thattekad

When I got here I explained to Vinod that I wanted to take it at a relaxed pace, and that I had no real interest in ticking off the endemics of this area and the ultimate size of my Thattekad list was a matter of extreme indifference to me. I've never been to India before so almost everything is new to me and want to experience the Western Ghats not be taken around at break neck speed missing out on the other wildlife of the place. 

So at 3pm we set off at a leisurely pace and walked around the World famous bird trail at Thattekad, named after India's founding father of ornithology. It was still hot and birdlife was hard to find at times, yet as the evening progressed we did start hearing and seeing more and more birds.

Arrival at Birds Song Homestay, Thattekad, India

So for the middle section of my holiday to India, I've took off on my own and moved inland to Thattekad. I booked a birding guide, Vinod Narayanan, who runs Birds Song Homestay which is inside the famous Salim Ali bird reserve and has been described by some as the best birding site in India. I arrived at midday with temperatures touching 36'C and Vinod suggested that we leave it until 3pm before venturing out, and I was more than happy to comply. 

It's not a bad place to spend a few hours though, surrounded by jungle with a lake to one side. First bird I saw was a new one, green bee-eater on a wire just down the hill. Other birds included lesser whistling ducks, greater racket-tailed drongo, Oriental darter, purple-rumped sunbird and white rumped munia.

Indian flying-foxes, Kochi

Today we came across a colony of Indian flying-foxes, also known as giant fruit bat, at Mangalavanam Bird Sanctuary near Kochi city centre. As the name implies, this is the largest of the flying-fox species.

Changaram wetlands, Kerala, India

Today we visited the wonderful Changaram wetlands just south of Kochi. What a place it is, masses of birds on the lilypad covered flooded fields, with people working waist deep in the water, a really evocative scene. One of the many highlights was the large numbers of cotton pygmy geese, a delightful little duck which I have seen before near Brisbane, but not as well or in such numbers. 

Other species included lesser whistling ducks, 100 garganey, stork-billed kingfisher, red-wattled lapwing, oriental darter, Indian cormorant, ashy woodswallow, blue-tailed bee-eaters, grey-headed swamphens, ashy prinia, pheasant-tailed jacana (unfortunately in non-breeding plumage), bronze-winged jacana, clamerous reed warbler, brown-headed gull, black-winged stilts, spot-billed pelican and various egrets and herons such as intermediate egret and purple heron.

Brahminy kites are just everywhere, often 40 or 50 in the sky at any one time. Even in the heart of the city of Kochi you can see them overhead.

Andhakaranazhi Beach and Chellanam Harbour

Andhakaranazhi beach lies about 25km south of Fort Kochi and is a beautiful place to walk along the eastern shore of the Arabian sea. As seems to be the case everywhere here, there are impressive numbers of egrets, but also today small flocks of greenshank and most likely other waders.

House crows and kites are always on hand to scavenge  any scraps which are left on the beach by the fishermen.

Fort Kochi, Kerala, India

I'm in Kerala, India visiting friends and a large part of it is family based activities, but of course never having been to India before, it's a great opportunity to see some new birds. Today we visited Fort Kochi where the birding highlight was the large numbers of kites and egret. Brahminy kites seem about the most common, but there are also large numbers of black kites.

 

Black kite.

A day in Kuwait

I'm on my way to Kerala in India, flying with Kuwait airlines, and about a week before we flew we were told that our two hour wait in Kuwait had now been extended to 19 hours! Not to worry though, under Kuwait law, the airline must provide us with a hotel for free, with complementary meals. I immediately spotted an opportunity to do some birding in Kuwait and see a few really special species.

Sounds good except that once in the free hotel you're not allowed to leave it until two hours before your outbound flight because the hotel is still within the airport security zone. So no chance of a few hours touring Kuwait if you take that option. I decided to decline the free hotel and booked the Holiday Inn just outside the airport at my own expense. No problem leaving the airport, I simply went to immigration when I got off the plane and they took my details and gave me a visa. It took about 10 minutes including queueing, and the hotel sent a driver to pick me up.

The next day my flight was at 17:00 and with my hold luggage still somewhere within the depths of the airport waiting to be tranferred to my next flight, I only had hand luggage with me, so no need to check in and no need to be back at the airport until 15:00. So at 06:30 I was picked up at the hotel by a local birding guide, AbdulRahman, and he took me birding for the eight hours or so that I had available. In total we saw 67 species of which 14 were new to me. 

The main species that I wanted to see was crab plover and we managed to find a flock of 31 birds on the beach at Sulaibikhat Sports Club. For a full list of species seen today click here (opens in a new window)

Crab plovers are absolutely awesome birds, like avocets with a massive, dagger like bills. The greyer looking birds are 1st winters of which there were about eight in the flock.

List of birds seen in Kuwait 13/02/2023

This is the full list of birds that I saw during a brief 8 hour visit to Kuwait on 13th February 2023. The full report with photos is here.

Species	Locations with number of birds seen in brackets
Little grebe	Jahra Pools (20)
Grey Heron	KISR west (3), Sulaibikhat Sports Club Beach (10)
Black-crowned Night Heron	Jahra Pools (30)
Western Reef Egret	KISR west (1), Sulaibikhat Sports Club Beach (5)
Little Egret	Kabd Reserve (10), KISR west (10)
Greater Flamingo	KISR west (200), Sulaibikhat Sports Club Beach (50)
Gadwall	Jahra Pools (50)
Teal	Jahra Pools (20)
Shoveler	Jahra Pools (10)
Pochard	Jahra Pools (5)
Ferruginous Duck	Jahra Pools (10)
Long-tailed Duck	Jahra Pools (1)
Black Kite	Ali Al-Sabah (10), Jahra Pools (30), Kabd Reserve (30), Sulaibikhat Sports Club Beach (5)
Black-winged Kite	Abdullah Al Mubarak (1)
Marsh Harrier	Jahra Pools (4)
Pallid Harrier	Kabd Reserve (1)
Steppe Eagle	Ali Al-Sabah (1), Kabd Reserve (6), Sulaibikhat Sports Club Beach (1)
Eastern Imperial Eagle	Ali Al-Sabah (1), Kabd Reserve (1)
Greater Spotted Eagle	Ali Al-Sabah (3), Jahra Pools (10), Kabd Reserve (5)
Moorhen	Jahra Pools (50)
Grey-headed Swamphen	Jahra Pools (1)
Coot	Jahra Pools (50)
Crab Plover	Sulaibikhat Sports Club Beach (31)
Ringed Plover	Sulaibikhat Sports Club Beach (50)
Kentish Plover	Sulaibikhat Sports Club Beach (10)
Greater Sand Plover	Sulaibikhat Sports Club Beach (2)
Grey Plover	Sulaibikhat Sports Club Beach (1)
Red-wattled Lapwing	Kabd Reserve (8)
White-tailed Plover	Jahra Pools (4), Kabd Reserve (1)
Little Stint	Sulaibikhat Sports Club Beach (10)
Dunlin	Sulaibikhat Sports Club Beach (300)
Snipe	Jahra Pools (2)
Bar-tailed godwit	Sulaibikhat Sports Club Beach (30)
Curlew	Jahra Pools (2), Sulaibikhat Sports Club Beach (10)
Redshank	Sulaibikhat Sports Club Beach (50)
Green Sandpiper	Kabd Reserve (6)
Terek Sandpiper	Sulaibikhat Sports Club Beach (1)
Black-headed Gull	Jahra Pools (300), Sulaibikhat Sports Club Beach (300)
Heuglin's Gull	Jahra Pools (2), KISR west (2), Sulaibikhat Sports Club Beach (50)
Steppe Gull	Sulaibikhat Sports Club Beach (2)
Caspian gull	Sulaibikhat Sports Club Beach (1)
Slender-billed Gull	KISR west (5), Sulaibikhat Sports Club Beach (50)
Gull-billed Tern	Sulaibikhat Sports Club Beach (2)
Caspian Tern	Sulaibikhat Sports Club Beach (1)
Collared Dove	Kabd Reserve (20), KISR west (30)
Namaqua Dove	Kabd Reserve (3)
Laughing Dove	Kabd Reserve (20), KISR west (10)
Pallid Swift	Kabd Reserve (30), KISR west (2)
White-throated Kingfisher	Jahra Pools (1)
Pied Kingfisher	Jahra Pools (2)
Crested Lark	Kabd Reserve (5)
Swallow	Jahra Pools (20), Kabd Reserve (30)
White-cheeked bulbul	KISR west (5)
Hypocolius	KISR west (12)
Water Pipit	Jahra Pools (3)
White Wagtail	Jahra Pools (3)
Caspian Stonechat	Kabd Reserve (1)
Isabelline Wheatear	Kabd Reserve (10)
Finsch's Wheatear	Kabd Reserve (1)
Desert Wheatear	Kabd Reserve (5)
Persian Wheatear	Kabd Reserve (1)
Chiffchaff	Jahra Pools (5)
Daurian Shrike	Jahra Pools (1), Kabd Reserve (1)
Steppe Grey Shrike	Kabd Reserve (1)
House Crow	KISR west (1)
Common Myna	KISR west (10)
House Sparrow	Ali Al-Sabah (5), Kabd Reserve (20)