Zuari River Trip

Alan and Yvette have a cook, Miguel, who cooks their evening meal. Last night he prepared aubergine slices dipped in egg, salt, pepper and chilli and then dipped in gram flour and fried. Crispy, light and delicious. The main course was rice, aloo gobi, chicken Xacuti and curd followed by ice cream. Everything was very tasty.

Today we had asked Vijay to take Ian and ourselves to Mr Kamat for the river trip. Normally the driver goes on the trip free. However 12 people turned up and there was no room for the drivers who are also good birders. This was disappointing as we would have preferred Vijay to come along too.  The other driver/bird guides are Raymond and Santosh.

This year there are no breeding dusky crag martins under the bridge although the peregrine was present. Great crested terns were perched on poles with  a single lesser crested tern. Can you spot the difference?

This river trip draws visitors from far and wide with binoculars and long lenses because the mangrove is home to Indian Mugger crocodiles as well as stork-billed, black-capped, collared, white-throated, common and pied kingfisher. The collared kingfishers were easily seen today as they begin their courtship displays.

Spending 3 hours drifting along the river and the narrower canals, sometimes with the engine switched off, is a blissful way to spend the morning. Lazy birding...! painted stork, lesser adjutant and wooly necked storks sit high up in the trees while curlew, whimbrel, redshank, greenshank, Common and Terek sandpipers poke around in the mud below. A pair of barn owls had a nest at the canal edge in a large hole and we watched them peeping out at us. 

The last two birds were Osprey ....

..... And a two white bellied sea eagles. What a grand finale!

The others who joined us were Thompson  and Tricia who were our Marinha Dourada acquaintances from last year.  Afterwards we took them to Literati for a relaxing light lunch in the quiet garden full of butterflies and birds.  

And finally...who do you think is the most important member of this family?  All comments welcome! Feel free to post...