14 Jan 14 - Desert Coursers

Caught the flight from Cochin on the 13th & arrived close to dusk in the main Gujarat city of Ahmedabad. The hotel had arranged an airport pickup, so no need to play the 'does the taxi driver actually know where I want to go' game this time. Ahmedabad is a noisy, bustling city & not helped by it being a big celebration on the 14th for Eid-el-Maulud (the birth of the Prophet). Everywhere kids were flying kites around the town, but not sure if that was directly related to the celebrations or just normal for Ahmedabad.

Ahmedabad: Entering the old city

Ahmedabad: Looks like a different subspecies of tuk-tuk to those seen earlier in the trip

The following morning, after a lot of time & money wasted by a useless travel agent in Mumbai posing as an agent for Desert Coursers (see Back From India), I finally managed to contact Desert Coursers directly. This proved to be the best place I stayed in my 6.5 weeks in India & I thoroughly enjoyed the 4 nights I ended up staying here. The easiest way of getting there was a taxi the hotel sorted for the 2 hour or so journey.

Celebrations for the Phophet's birthday: There is a large Muslim population in Gujarat. Somehow I can't see Pakistan being so tolerant of Indian flags being waved on the streets in their country

Long distance train:  Surprisingly, I saw very few trains given the number in India. This was a very long train with many different carriages each labelled with their particular class

Desert Coursers is owned & run by the very likeable & knowledgeable owner, Dhanraj Malik. It has a number of rooms available & provides very good Indian food three times a day. Anybody thinking of staying would be well advised to contact Desert Coursers directly, instead of trying to book on line via other companies. The contact details are Zainabad@hotmail.com, www.desertcoursers.net, 94263 72113 or 94270 66070).

The open plan guest area & restaurant

The open plan guest area: All made with traditional materials

Desert Coursers: My room with an attached bathroom at the back 

Desert Coursers: The hut from the inside (with the bathroom behind the red door)

The Desert Coursers's drivers run twice daily jeep rides into the Little Rann of Kutch & neighbouring areas. The drivers do seem to know a lot of stakeouts for the birds & are good at picking up birds & mammals. Be warned that as it's a dusty place & the jeeps are open backed, that a pair of sunglasses are a useful thing to have with you to protect your eyes.

After a welcoming cup of tea, Dhanraj introduced me to one of his most popular & long staying guests, Bruce. On my last day there were some guys from the nearby Rann Riders who popped in to meet Bruce.

Bruce's Scops Owl: Apparently, Desert Coursers is apparently the only reliable, regular site for Bruce's Scops Owl in India

I had arrived too late to head out on a jeep ride, but was happy to potter around the camp & neighbouring countryside with the camera in the last couple of hours of the day.

Collared Dove: Could easily have been taken by my house in Dorset, except for the clear skies

Rufous-fronted Prinia: The long white brow, white lores & underparts help to identify this Prinia. The rufous forecrown is worn on this individual (& a second photo shows the pale tail tips)

Red-breasted Flycatcher

Jungle Babbler

Black Drongo

Common House Gecko: Good to have 2 or 3 around the hut

Local village ladies doing the laundry by the nearby lake

At dusk, British Birder & semi ex-pat, Bill Martin, who had also just arrived at Desert Coursers, returned from a jeep ride around the area. I think we successfully managed to bore the other non birding guests that evening with a lot of birding talk over & after dinner. But that's life when 2 keen birders meet!!! We were only stopped at one point when a Spotted Owlet started calling in the camp area & was quickly lured into a bare tree in the camp by Bill. It's always a good day when you see an Owl & even better when you see more than 1 species.

Spotted Owlet: One of the resident pair

19 Dec 13 - Winter Sun?

Decided to escape the Christmas thing this year & have headed off to the Indian Andman Islands & the Western Ghats (SW India) with Brian Field. I've been on a few foreign trips with Brian in the old days, but this is the first time we've teamed up in recent years. As I had more free time on my hands that Brian, I headed out a few days early to acclimatise to the chaos of India & to allow me to get over the jet lag before Brian arrived. Flew into Calcutta with Qatar Airlines, via a short change of planes in Doha, Qatar. A remarkably straight-forward flight, with a mere 30 minutes from arriving at Heathrow T4 to being at the boarding gate. With some Asian airlines in the past, it's taken that long to just check the main bag in.

After all I've heard of India having changed massively in the last decade, it doesn't appear to have changed that much on the ground. Still the noisy, poor, chaotic country that I remember. Standards of driving remain unchanged, but more modern cars on the road now.

The Ambassador taxi: They seem to have been on the road since the days of the British Morris Minor (except the latter disappeared off the UK roads decades ago)

The Ambassador taxi: The inside decor isn't plush

There are some basic rules of the road when driving in Indian cities. To prove your car is roadworthy, you only need to beep your horn at least once a minute. Leaving any gap no matter how small is a sign of personal weakness. Taxi drivers are expected to disprove the laws of nature & try to fit their cars into any gap that's about half a car wide: again beeping the horn helps to bend the space-time continuum to allow this to happen. Stephen Hawking has yet to adjust the latest theories to explain this rule.

It's important not to leave a gap: to avoid another taxi squeezing in

There was little chance of seeing any ticks around Calcutta, given I've already spent 6 weeks birding in Northern India in 91 as well as a couple of Nepalese trips. Therefore, birding was planned to be a couple of laid back trips to local sites with the camera. First site was to Joka Marshes. This is a set of marshes, flooded fish ponds & scattered trees on the edge of the city in a semi rural area where there were plenty of small basic homes. Didn't manage to find the better area of marshes as the directions to the best patch of marsh are patchy on the internet. I explored the fish ponds until the track I was on just gave up as I reached the last of the houses. The people were friendly & surprisingly unfazed by seeing a tourist wandering around taking photos of the birds.

Indian Pond Heron: A common resident species in the local wetlands

Yellow Bittern: This species replaces Little Bittern in most of the Indian Subcontinent

Yellow Bittern: Males are separated from Little Bittern by the pale brownish not black, mantle

Little Green Bee-eater: A species many British birders will be familiar with from Israel trips

Ashy Minivet: Surprisingly this isn't on the Calcutta checklist. I'm sure it's just an oversight on their part as I can't believe my party of 3 birds are a city first

Ashy Minivet: They spent a lot of time just inside the canopy

Jungle Babbler: They often seem to have a hunchbacked appearance

Jungle Babbler: I do like Turdoides Babblers: they are generally obvious, noisy & full of character

Asian Pied Myna: Starling species are well represented in India

Purple-rumped Sunbird: I had forgotten how bright the females can get

As for the Winter sun, that was missing. Throughout my visit, there was a hazy smog over the city
which I'm assuming was a pollution problem, but the BBC news had mentioned it was foggy over large parts of the Subcontinent, so may be a mixture of reasons. Still it kept the temperatures down to a more pleasant t-shirt & shirt weather.