BACK FROM MUNNAR

I was on a three day birding trip with K.V Eldhose and my friend in munnar. I don think Eldose needs an introduction. Almost all birders in India know about him. He usually doesn spot birds whereas he tracks them. He took us to a place and played the white bellied shortwing call and the bird came out from no where revealing its identity.

He showed me eight endemics and i got full frame pics of few endemics.The highlight of the trip was the white bellied shortwing, nilgiri pipit, and nilgiri thar.I was extremely happy as i got to spend my 18th birthday with them all( Thars, Pipits, Shortwings, Eldose and my dearest friend).I was presented the Birds of prey of the indian sub continent by Rishad naoroji, a book that i wanted to get for quite sometime.

We reached rather early around 7:00AM to take the bus at eight to Eravikulam national park.It was good we did that for two reasons as the crowd tothe park was a lot and I also managed to get a shot of the Malabar whistling thrush.Soon after we got off the bus we spotted two Nilgiri pipit,and i got good shots of them feeding each other.We walked up the road just for a few metres and we were surrounded by Niligiri Thars(Hemadactylus hylorchis).I got some decent shotsof saddleback(male thar)females, sub adult and kids.

BIRDS:
1)White bellied shortwing
2)Nilgiri pipit
3) nilgiri flycatcher( male,female, juvenile)
4)Greybreasted laughing thrush
5) Black and orange flycatcher
6)nilgiri wood pigeon
7) Rufous babbler
8)Crimson backed sun bird
9)Pacific swallows
10)Velvet fronted nutach
11)Malabar whistling thrush
12)Oriental white eye
13)Balck bul bul
14) White cheeked barbet
15)Little grebe
16)Pond heron
17)Common moorhen
18)Bronzed drongo
19)jungle crow
20)Grey headed canary flycatcher
21)Schimitar Babbler
22)Long tailed shrike
23)jungle babbler
24)Lesser cormorant
25)Yellow browed bul bul
26)Red spur fowl
27)Pied bushchat
28)Painted bushquail
29)Red vented bul bul
30) Red whiskered bul bul
31)Red watled lapwing
32)Asian palm swift
33)Paddy field pipit
34)Grey jungle fowl
35)Common kestrel
36)Crested serpent eagle
Mammals:
1)nilgiri thar
2)Dusky stripped squrriel

After munnar i am going to my native for a three day break then starting again to Badhra, Daroji and bhemeswari. then i am heading back to chennai on 10th as my college re opens on the 11th.i hope the connection is fast enough to upload pics from the field.

curent mood: happy

cheers,
ram.