This was a private trip to Southern India concentrating on
the Western Ghats endemics organised via Bluetail Birding with a short pre-tour
extension.
Monday 17th
I met up with Lynne and Neil airside at Heathrow T3 mid-afternoon
and we headed for the nearest coffee shop. It wasn’t long before we were
boarding our 18:00 Virgin flight to Mumbai. I’d elected for Premium Economy for the
extra legroom and the welcome drink of prosecco also went down nicely!
Tuesday 18th
We landed at 08.20 local time in India’s second largest
city, home to 23 million people. Black Kite kicked off our trip list with a few
seen floating around the airport. Once through immigration we collected our
bags and met up with our driver who took us a short distance through the city
to our hotel. We couldn’t check in for a while and then decided to rest up for
the remainder of the day as we had nothing scheduled.
Wednesday 19th
We had a very early start as we had to drive out of the vast
city and northwards to Tansa. We picked up our guide, Prathamesh Desai, at a
nearby rail station and arrived at the reserve at 7am having consumed our
packed breakfast. The day was all about seeing Forest Owlet but there was time
for general birding as well. Green Warbler was heard as soon as we got out of
the car and we heard many more during the day and did eventually see one. We
taped in a Mottled Wood Owl which flew over the clearing a couple of times
being pursued by mobbing Black Drongos and briefly landed where we could see it
before disappearing back into the forest.
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| Mottled Wood Owl with mobbing Drongos |
We drove a short distance to the main area for the owlet and
one soon started to call. It took a while to get decent views but the pair
decided to give themselves up in the end. Also seen in the area were
Thick-billed Flowerpecker, Indian Grey Hornbill and Alexandrine Parakeet. We
went to a nearby location and saw another Forest Owlet – there are several
known territories in the area.
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| Forest Owlet |
With the main target safely in the bag we spent the rest of
the day birding the area seeing Rufous Treepie, Indian Golden and Black-hooded
Orioles and Grey-breasted Prinia. We stopped at a bridge over a river where
several Chiffchaffs (probably Siberian) and a Blyth’s Reed Warbler were
feeding. In the sunshine, raptors began to appear and Oriental Honey-Buzzard
and White-eyed Buzzard were both seen.
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| Asian Green Bee-eater |
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| Black Drongo |
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| Indian Golden Oriole |
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| Malabar Woodshrike |
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| White-eyed Buzzard |
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| Yellow-throated Sparrow |
We went off for lunch and a rest at the reserve where we
were entertained by a family of Peafowl chicks that had been rescued and had
soon adopted people as substitute parents, one even climbing up me and falling
asleep on my shoulder!
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| Reserve entrance - made out of plastic trees! |
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| napping Peafowl chick |
We resuming birding the area in the afternoon; it was a
lot quieter but we did manage to find Red-headed Bunting, Small Minivet and
Cinereous Tit before stopping at 17:30.
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| Blue Tigers |
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| Common Sailor |
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| Common Tiger |
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| A couple of unidentified frogs |
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| Large Wood Spider |
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| Slender Skimmer |
We dropped our guide back at the station
and started the long drive back to Mumbai where the evening rush hour had
ground the traffic to a crawl and we didn’t get back to our hotel until 21:15,
some three and three-quarter hours later. We had a late dinner then packed for
tomorrow’s departure.
