Tadoba National Park - Part IV
Great afternoon birding
05.11.2017 - 07.11.2017
View
Tiger, Tiger, Burning Bright - India 2017
on Grete Howard's travel map.
On the way to the park gate this afternoon, we stop to see the cotton fields and women collecting grass for their cattle.
Black Shouldered Kite
This afternoon it has been decided that for a bit of variety, we will enter a different part of Tadoba Tiger Reserve, the Agarzari Buffer Zone.
Seeing leopard paw prints just inside the gate, gets us off to a promising start.
We see lots of beautiful and colourful butterflies around a particular meadow, but they are so hard to photograph when they are on the move.
Purple heron
We head for some wetlands and spend most of the rest of the afternoon in and around this area.
There are lots of birds around, but mammals are sadly lacking.
Purple heron
Little Cormorant
Black Ibis
The fickle Asian Open-Billed Stork
I'm coming in to land... get off my perch!
Ooh! Changed my mind... I think I will find somewhere else to sit.
Nah, you can keep your rock.
Well.... actually, I think I prefer it over this side anyway.
Perhaps this wasn't such a bad place after all.
Intermediate Egret
Black Headed Ibis
Lesser Adjutant
The first mammal we see this afternoon is this sambar hiding in the tall grass.
Oriental Magpie Robin
White Fronted Water Hen
White Fronted Water Hen
Asian Open Billed Stork
Little Cormorant spreading his wings to dry them out
Our fickle Openbill is back, with a snail in her beak.
Sunset over the marshland.
The light is fading really fast now, as we make our way back to the park gate.
We see one more animal on our way out, in the near darkness.
Gaur
He is eyeing us suspiciously from behind the grass.
And that brings a very abrupt end to my blog from our 2017 India trip. For some reason I did not take any photos after this. To be fair, I had an upset tummy in the evening and the next day for our long journey home (Tadoba - Jabalpur-Delhi-London-Bristol (including a stop in Delhi during their awful smog problem when schools and offices were closed).
For my birding friends: We ended up with a trip count of 71, 31 of which were lifers. That is what I consider a successful birding trip! And, of course, we did see FIVE tigers, so all in all it was a very good safari.
Posted by Grete Howard 14:46 Archived in India Tagged sunset india kite safari birding butterfly cotton wetlands heron egret stork ibis cormorant gaur tadoba sambar bird_watching tiger_park adjutant buffer_zone agarzari_zone openbill open_bill magpie_robin water_hen
Wonderful sighting of a Bison ! Open Billed Stork is quite rare in Western India but here in the East India , they are found in Plenty !
by Goutam Mitra