21 Jan 14 - Goodbye Gujarat, Hello Rajasthan

A dawn start as we had a 490 km drive from CEDO to Mount Abu. We would also be crossing an Indian state line. Vehicle registration is often on a state by state basis & therefore vehicles travelling into a different state need to sort out extra paperwork & of course pay some money. Armed with all the papers, it wasn't more than a few minutes for Shiva to sort this out & to get the car legal for the rest of the month in Rajasthan. This is partially a road tax payment & was a relatively modest cost, but failure to sort this out, could lead to a bigger fine if you were checked by the police. The office was just a voluntary pull in at the state boundary & it wasn't that obvious, but Shiva was well aware he needed to sort this out. Armed with the extra papers we were quickly on our way. The roads for the journey were good most of the way, with fairly empty toll dual carriageways (often costing about 1 Rupee per km). Despite looking like empty motorways, there seemed to be nothing to stop who used them, so often local farm traffic appeared on them for local journeys.

Overladen tractor

Mount Abu is an interesting place in India as it's one of the most Northerly places for birds & mammals with a predominantly South Western distribution. It is also one of the best sites for the Indian endemic Green Avadavat. This is a really good looking uncommon Estrilid, which has a wide range (on paper) in Central India, but generally in areas that are off the beaten track for birders. Mount Abu is one of the few sites that can be fitted into a Gujarat/Rajasthan trip, albeit with a lot of driving.

Mount Abu: Looks interesting forest, but was fairly quiet for birds

Finally in mid afternoon after 6 hours of dull driving, we had reached the base of Mount Abu. The road winds steadily upwards onto a hillside of dry forest, which was a nice change after the agricultural fields & arid scrub of the plains. We tried a couple of short stops, but didn't see a lot of birds.

White-eyed Buzzard: Immature

Indian White-eye 

White-bellied Drongo

Southern Plains Grey Langur: This was the commonest wildlife on the road up Mount Abu

Southern Plains Grey Langur: Whilst looking cute & innocent, like all habituated Monkeys you need to keep an eye on them to avoid them getting into the car or trying to grab something

Shiva was concerned about the extra passengers 

Map of Mount Abu: A confusing maze of roads & not to scale. We wanted the Peace Park in the top right. Turns out the distance from the Peace Park to Trevor's Tank, the next point on the map, is further than the distance to our hotel in town (at the bottom right corner)

After finding a reasonably priced, but unremarkable, hotel we headed out for the last couple of hours of light. The main birding site is next to the Peace Park. We headed off in that direction, but stopped to bird around a scrubby & wooded hill side above a lake. I wasn't surprised, when we later visited the lake to find the edge covered in broken glass bottles. Gujarat is a largely Muslim & dry state. In comparison, alcohol is commonly available in Rajasthan & it seems that it is expected to throw the empty beer & whisky bottles so it smashes.

Ashy Prinia: Well marked adult

Ashy Prinia: Immature with well marked barring on the undertail tips

Tailorbird

Taiga Flycatcher: Male. Also known as Red-throated Flycatcher. This is a colder grey bird than a Red-breasted Flycatcher. Photos of an subadult male RBF can be found in an earlier blog (A Cracking Woodpecker at Jungle Hut)

Taiga Flycatcher: Male. The extent of the red seems to vary on Taiga Flycatchers & this is about the maximum seen. The red would extend further onto the breast if it was an RBF

Taiga Flycatcher: Male. The tail & upper tail coverts are blacker than on an RBF & again the colder grey upperparts are obvious

Taiga Flycatcher: Male. The all black bill is another good feature (it would be pale based on an RBF)

Indian Black-lored Tit: Also known as Indian Yellow Tit

Indian Black-lored Tit

Rufous Treepie

Yellow-throated Sparrow

Five-striped Palm Squirrel

In the late afternoon, we carried on along the road & found the Peace Park. There was a chance for a quick exploration of the small arable village behind the Peace Park which is one of the best areas to see the Green Avadavat, but no joy with the Green Avadavat.

The small village by the Peace Park

The small village: It's very traditional

The small village overlooked a set of small fields

4 Jan 14 - Nilgiri Tahr

The previous afternoon, Vinod had proposed a change to the plan for this morning. Originally, we were scheduled to visit Eravikulam National Park, about 30 minutes from Munnar. However, as the main target bird is Nilgiri Pipit, which we had seen well at Ooty, Vinod proposed the revised plan of looking for the Broad-tailed Grassbird & other species we had seen earlier this morning (see Birding With Coffee). The drawback was we were likely to miss Nilgiri Tahr, which is an endemic Mountain Goat. Given we only had 1 day left around Munnar & several key ticks to see, this seemed a good revised plan. I then said to Vinod I had see Nilgiri Tahr the previous day & showed him the picture.

Nilgiri Tar

For anybody in the UK at the moment complaining about pot holes, just be glad you don't have these amateurs filling your pot holes. Amazingly, they got this far & without any attempt to compact the tar & stones, just left it along. The result is within minutes a car went through the pot hole leaving most scattered over the road. I'm sure within a few hours the hole would have been as bad as it was before they started.

The tar laying gang: A wood burning machine to melt the tar

When we got to the hotel the previous evening & before we had had chance to check out Nilgiri Tahr on the laptop, I saw this interesting picture of the Mountain Goat, we were expecting to miss.

Nilgiri Tahr: Looks like it will be a pity to miss this species

Back to today, we had our late breakfast & returned to the site, we visited the previous afternoon as there we still several birds we were looking for. The main bird from my viewpoint was Black-and-orange Flycatcher, which Vinod had said should be common & yet I had missed the only one seen on the trip (at Ooty). Fortunately, Brian spotted one soon after we got out of the car & while it provided to be quite showy, it wouldn't allow me to get close for decent photos.

Black-and-orange Flycatcher: A Western Ghats endemic I wouldn't have wanted to miss

There was a lot more bird activity than the previous afternoon. Not particularly surprising as quite often bird activity drops off well before dusk, when it cools down quickly due to the higher elevations. Other birds seen here included the following species.

Tytler's Warbler: The thin, long, dark  bill, long whitish eyestripe over a dark eye line, overall crab colouration & no wingbars are all features. Not the best of photos, but the only Tytler's we saw

Grey-headed Flycatcher: A species that will be familiar to many Oriental birders

Indian Black-lored Tit: Also known as Indian Yellow Tit & recently split from its Himalayan cousin (Black-lored Tit)

After a couple of hours, we had seen most of the expected Munnar ticks, but we were still struggling to find a White-bellied Shortwing. Vinod lives at Thattekad, a couple of hours drive away from Munnar, at so he is almost on home ground here. So he got on the phone & started to ring some of the local birdwatchers & fortunately, hit gold with the news that one of his mates had been watching a White-bellied Shortwing that morning. We now had directions down to the patch of trees & bushes. Even better it was at Eravikulam National Park, so we would have a crack at Nilgiri Tahr after all. We quickly headed off to the entrance road to the National Park. Private vehicles are not allowed in the park, with access being by a group of park minibuses which run every few minutes up the road to the National Park. Everybody is dropped near the top & can then walk for another mile or so, along the closed off final section of road. The drawback is it is a popular tourist site & best visited early before the hordes descend. Still we couldn't do anything to change this & just had to put up with the people.

The Park is a grass covered steep & high volcanic plug of rock: The first Nilgiri Tahr were right up on the grassy ridge

The view over the valley

Just after we left the minibus drop off point, I got distracted with photographing a Red-whiskered Bulbul. This was nearly a costly error, as Brian & Vinod had walked up the road & had a Painted Bush-quail run across it. I quickly caught them up & fortunately, they had spotted another 2 lurking in the edge of the bushes (which clearly wanting to join the bird that had already crossed the road). Even better the male then reappeared onto the road, to try & find out why the female/immature birds were dawdling. I had hoped I would get to see a Bush-quail somewhere on the trip & this was my the second species & it was standing right out in the open. It is a gorgeous bird, when seen well & made up for the lack of photos of the Jungle Bush-quail we had seen.

Painted Bush-quail: Male. A cracking Bush-quail

Painted Bush-quail: The male then walked off the road, before standing on this small rock, in the hope the other birds would come along. Sadly, it was another group of locals who appeared first & flushed them

As we continued up the track, I was scanning the high ridges looking for Nilgiri Tahr & it wasn't long before I found some. I was quite pleased to see this endemic Mountain Goat, albeit the views weren't that impressive. I later found out as we walked further up the road, my efforts weren't really necessary.

Nilgiri Tahr: A real one at last, high up on the ridge

Nilgiri Tahr: This one is clearly the local exhibitionist & was sitting quietly about 30 metres from the road

There were a reasonable selection of birds to see, despite the problems of people who kept noisily walking up to us to stare into the bushes & were surprised there weren't a herd of Tahr in there.

Kestrel: Female. There is a resident subspecies objurgatus in the Western Ghats, but the subspecies interstinctus also winters across Peninsula India

Red-whiskered Bulbul

White-bellied Shortwing: This seems to be a shy bird, but for once the only people to come along were a Swiss girl & her Indian boyfriend who patiently waited while we were photographing this bird. The key features are the white belly & narrow white supercilium as well as feeding on the ground like a Rubythroat

Kerala Laughingthrush: A really great looking Laughingthrush. Although it has a limited range in the Southern part of the Western Ghats, it does seem to be fairly common

The river by the start of the entrance road: Sadly, there is little interest in disposing of rubbish in an environmentally friendly way in India, often to the detriment of the local rivers

As we were driving back to the hotel, we saw the final bird of the day, a Grey Junglefowl.

Grey Junglefowl