They Came, We Saw, They Conquered

This weekend was all about flamingos. As last time I'd missed them by a hair, I decided to go again with a couple of friends. The ride to Bhigwan was uneventful and we stopped only once for a hot plate of Misal Pav. We reached Diksal by around 8:30 am or so.

After the turnoff @ Bhillarwadi towards Dalaj, just before the bridge we stopped to see a lot of shovellers, river terns, black-tailed godwits, sand-pipers and a lot of other water birds. A solitary White necked Stork was standing @ some distance in the field. We spent a lot of time here, trying to identify each and every bird we saw.

That done, we continued along the bridge towards Dalaj. Lots of lapwings and herons were settled amongst the rocks on the sides and flew off as our car passed them.

After the bridge we spotted a large gathering of openbill storks and glossy ibises in the water on the right side of the road. We parked and came back to this spot.

We started naming the birds etc and all of a sudden we spotted them :). Yes, Flamingoes. There were not too many here, just 8 as we counted. They were standing still in the water not really feeding. Two of them were standing on only one leg and necks looped into their bodies. We looked @ them for a long time and then pushed off in the hope of spotting some more further down the road.

Our guess was correct and some time further down the road we spotted them. This time on the left of the road at the spot where I'd spotted a white Ibis & black Ibis roost last time. They were in a flock of about 100-150 around 200 mtrs from the shore. We were very very excited :).

The land here is boggy as I mentioned in the last post. And we really couldn't get very close. We walked towards the water up to the point where we could tread safely. The flamingoes were very beautiful to watch and it indeed was a priviledge watching them in their natural environs.

There were a few juveniles too in the flock and that is a good sign :), as these when grownup will probably return to this same wetland next time and bring in others too :). The heavy rains this year have been a boon to the farmers but a bane to birdwatchers as there are a lot of (new) wetlands and hence the birds have spread out than usual.

We watched the flamingoes for a long time and then decided to call it a day. On the way back we went back to the spot where I'd spotted Spoonbills last time. This time there were none :(.

As usual the list of birds and pics. This time the flamingoes take the cake though :).

1. Black Tailed Godwit.
2. Red Wattled Lapwing.
3. Painted Stork ( Juvenille )
4. Marsh Harrier.
5. Godwit flock.
6. Flamingo Flock.
7. Flamingo Take-off 1, 2 3 4 5