25 Dec 13 - Happy Christmas

I've never been a great fan of Christmas given its over commercialism & with birding being my only religion, then it's great to be birding again abroad on Christmas Day. Having seen nearly all the Andaman endemics in the last few days, the only target species left to see were Andaman Crake & the very tricky Andaman Barn Owl (which few people see or hear). Hoping for a quiet start we headed off on another early boat to Mount Harriet National Park on the far side of the bay from Port Blair. We managed about 4 or 5 hours, before the hordes descended, but by that time we were close to packing up.

Brian & Vikram: Also enjoying Christmas Day birding

Me: With the Mount Harriet forest behind

View from the top of Mount Harriet

We spent some time birding along the road leading to the park. Whilst the forest didn't look as good as we had seen on previous days, it was still good birding.

Brahminy Kite: These gorgeous raptors have a wide range from the Indian Subcontinent to Australia. Surprisingly, I didn't see that many on this Indian trip

Andaman Green Pigeon: This party of 3 birds gave nice, but still high, views

Andaman Coucal: A typical skulking bird

Chestnut-headed Bee-eater: Another great Bee-eater

Smyrna Kingfisher: A stunning bill

Andaman Bulbul

Red-whiskered Bulbul: Disliked by many birders as they live in secondary habitat, but I have a soft spot for Bulbuls (although I draw the line at African Greenbuls)

Asian Fairy-bluebird: Male

Olive-backed Sunbird

Andaman Butterfly: Identifying tropical butterflies is beyond my interest, so it has no name

Andaman Beetle: A cracking beetle, that had lost an antenna

We headed back to Port Blair for lunch. En route, a stop along the harbour's edge in Port Blair  produced a good selection of Waders roosting on boats during the high tide.

Eastern Reef Heron

Lesser Sandplover

Whimbrel & Pacific Golden Plover

Terek Sandpiper & Pacific Golden Plover: The first Terek Sandpiper I've seen for at least 20 years

Common Sandpiper

Gandhi Statue: Clearly a popular man in Port Blair. I only saw one more Gandhi statue on the rest of the trip

Late afternoon saw us returning to Chiriya Tapu on another search for Andaman Crake. One responded briefly to the tape, but from deep in the forest, before shutting up.

The highlight of the afternoon was rescuing this Yellow Bittern from the hands of a couple of small boys. It sounded like they had picked it up near the road and were taking it home to show the parents. After asking to have a look at it, we could see it looked unhurt and asked if we could keep it. They said they were planning on letting it go and while I think they might have, I wasn't so sure if their parents were vegetarians. After giving them a 20 rupee note, we were able to get some photos & release it. It looked a bit dazed and didn't seem to want to fly, but happily dived off into the long vegetation, when given that as an option.

Yellow Bittern: Well worth the 20 rupee note (20p) we paid the kids for him

Yellow Bittern: Good deed done for the day

Yellow Bittern: He didn't want to fly from here, perhaps still a bit shocked, but happily walked off into long grass when re-released further along the road

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.