We spent the night at an airport hotel in Mumbai, and at 07:00 our drivers for the two days we were exploring the area came to pick us up and take us out of the city and to the Tansa Wildlife Sanctuary where we would have an afternoon and a morning birding, looking for just a couple of key species. The journey was surprisingly short, as we arrived at the hotel just before 10:00 which included a stop for some breakfast.
Once we checked in to our hotel, Hidden Village, we settled in for what we presumed would be a long morning/afternoon relaxing before going out in the afternoon to find our main target; the Forest Owlet. However, we had barely been settled in to our room when the guide rushed in telling us that the main guide, his boss, was currently watching an Owlet in the sanctuary. We rushed to the car and after a solid 20-30 minute drive arrived at the spot where he was.
Fortunately the Owl had stayed put, but it had now moved and was badly obscured so much so that you could only see its head peeking out of the tree. After a short while however it jumped onto a more open perch and from then on we could see the bird with only a few leaves obscuring it. We were also able to pick out another bird perched slightly further away. Having dedicated essentially two days to this species, we were pretty thrilled to have it wrapped up within the first hour.
After an afternoon rest, we set off back to the field at 16:30, this time into the Tansa Wildlife Sanctuary itself, in search of the White-naped Woodpecker. Sadly we failed to find the bird in the time we had before dark and overall activity was quite limited. Still, we managed a few species of interest; Chestnut-tailed Starling, White-eyed Buzzard and some distant Cotton Pygmy Geese being the best of it. The highlight of the evening was a large, one metre long snake that we found near dusk in the tall grass. This was the first snake of our trip and my first snake in almost a year!
No comments:
Post a Comment