Thursday, January 29, 2009

Shoveller and Bearded Tits







Shown here are a female Shoveller and a pair of distant Bearded Tit

Local Birds
















This gloomy weather is making photography difficult but here are a few birds we have seen lately. Barn Owl, Goldcrest and Bittern

Friday, January 23, 2009

Goa - Dec 2008







Our 3rd visit to wonderful Goa. Below are lots and lots of photographs, it may take a while to scroll down to view them all!! Click on each pic for larger view! It is an amazing place to visit, wonderful people, fabulous food and awesome and very varied Wildlife. Our base (as always) was Dona Paula. We tend to avoid tourist areas (apart from the major birding sites) prefering to stay here as you can spend more time with the locals, join in their village life(we were invited to many of the local's houses for tea!!!) and see the "real" Goa. Brilliant!!! Here are Mandy and Mick out birding! :) Most of our wildlife watching was done around Dona Paula, Carambolim Lake, Backwoods and Bondla. Photography was quite a challenge at times as the sun tended to be extremely bright and in the wrong place(!) or the birds were high in the canopy. Still we got a lot of pleasure from just observing all the amazing birds and creatures. Can't wait to go back!

Goan People
















People of Goa part 2











Fishing is big business as well as rice growing!
All the Goans we met were so nice and friendly. We spent a lot of time with the locals

Purple Rumped Sunbirds











These beauties were everywhere in Goa. The male is stunning!

Lesser Whistling Duck




Lots of these on Carambolim Lake. Seen here in flight and also on the water with the swamphens

Common Kingfisher
















A very common sight, seen daily.

Pied King







Always a nice bird to see but difficult to get great pics, very fast and dont hang around long before they are off!

Hoopoe




We saw a few of these but none were particularly confiding.

Flying Lizard











These were great to see especially the displaying male. We came across them at Bondla, at first sight out of the corner of your eye they look like small birds flitting through the trees!

More Birds.........
















Here are a few more bird species.. Common Tailorbird, Rufous Treepie, Paddyfield Pipit, Large Billed Crow and House Crow

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Avian Mixture part 1
















Shown here are Purple Sunbird, Spotted Dove, Purple Swamphen, Osprey and Indian Pitta