Birding @ Alibaug

Well well, I cretainly haven't seem to got enough of Alibaug yet :). Our company trip returned from Alibaug on Saturday and Sunday found me @ Alibaug again, this time with , my Ornothology class though. We were there to look @ the migratory waterbirds that are abundant here during the winter months.

Starting from Pune @ around 6:30 am we reached a shore near Revas @ around 10:30 am. Almost immediately we saw a large number of birds. But they were right @ the water's edge and it being low tide, they were very very far inside. We used the spotting scope brought by Dr Vaibhav, a native of Alibaug. This guy has been very active in this area and we later saw a blue whale skeleton he has conserved.

Since the birds were very far, we decided to move further along the shore, where hopefully we might see them from close quarters. We walked to the new spot and as we were going towards the beach saw a Desert Wheatear.
Its a winter migrant to India and not very common. We then went on to the shore to look @ the plovers, sea gulls an terns. Unlucky for us, there were not many birds that day. The local fisherman were wading in the shallows with their nets and may be that was keeping the birds away.We saw a sea-snake caught in the nets of one of these fishermen.

Not having seen anything here we moved off to another point, a jetty ( Revas jetty its called I think ) of sorts. Here we spotted a lone Osprey sitting on a far pole. He was too far away to take a photograph, but could be seen clearly through the scope. We also spotted a curlew and a whimbrel here. There was a flock of gulls settled on a mud patch with a solitary yellow legged gull amongst them.

There on we moved to Kihim, where we had lunch followed by Dr Vaibhav's talk on birds found around Alibaug and a discussion about conservation in general.

We then pushed off for Akshi beach, where again we were dissapointed to see only one single flock of terns which also flew away upon our arrival. :( .

We then went to visit the whale skeleton conserved by Dr Vaibhav and his colleagues.
This was a baby blue whale washed up on the shores near here around 2 years back. It started rotting and the horrible stench prompted the local people to bury it in the sands using an earth mover. This caused some damage to it and Dr. Vaibhav intervened and restored it @ considerable personal expenditure. The bones which were damaged or missing were cast out of PoP and today the whole skeleton stands restored.

Its a marvel to watch and though its only a baby its almost as long as a tourist bus !!! On seeing this you tend to wonder what you'd do when one of these things pops up beside you while you are out for a swim in the ocean :D !


That completed our trip and we headed back home. A lot of PJs were exchanged throughout the journey and we reached Pune @ around 12:00 am.

Though, we didn't see a lot of birds, all of those that we saw were new to me atleast and the trip in general was quite educating :)