Birder Young

I started 2023 birding with a trip to Viva wetlands. This was my first trip to this hotspot. Viva Wetlands are located in Virar, which can be reached by road from Mumbai. We chose to travel by train as the hotspot is located close to Virar train station. Our group  met at the start of the trail at 8AM in the morning. It was a very warm day for January so I had removed my jacket before starting the trail. The trail was led by one of my favorite birders, Amol. He has been birding in this area for long and I have traveled to Mamachi Wadi beach with him in September-2022. He led us on a long walking path through grassland and wetland habitat. The entire area gets flooded during monsoons but it was dry with walking paths in January. There was soft soil at places in which birds had made track marks overnight. It was fun walking next to bird tracks. The first highlight of the day was Blyth’s pipit which Amol helped us identify in flight. I got a glimpse. My second important sighting w...

During Christmas holidays, I traveled with my family to a remote village in Uttarakhand. Our group started from Delhi in two cars. We traveled through Uttar Pradesh, where a small collision happened between our car and truck. What a way to start a journey!! However, we were all safe and continued to our first stop in Rishikesh. Our resort was located on the banks of holy Ganges and we were able to see evening Aarti on the river bank from the room window. Rishikesh is located in foothills and we started our journey to Kuflon the next day morning. Kuflon is small village in Uttarkashi region of Uttarakhand. It is at an altitude of 1,300 meters above sea level. It is located on the road to Gangotri which is at an even higher altitude of 3,500 meters. I had done my research on what birds to find near Kuflon, however we were not able to find a naturalist in the remote area till last minute. It was going to be difficult to identify hotspots and birds in a new area. Luckily, we found a good...

Matheran is a hill station located in the Sahyadri mountain range. It can be reached from Mumbai by 2 and a half hours drive or similar time by train. The train drops you at Neral station and one can take a taxi from there to Matheran parking. The hill station is traffic free. It is a highly biodiverse place with birds, amphibians and reptiles in good numbers. It was a chilly winter morning when we took the train to go to Neral station. I was wearing a hooded jacket, yet I felt very cold in the train. We joined our birding group at the Neral station. Our group had breakfast and tea a restaurant outside station. We then hired a cab to take for a 25-minute ride to Matheran parking. The first bird we saw, strolling around the parking, was Asian Paradise Flycatcher. We saw the cinnamon morph. While it is called a flycatcher, its feeding habits and behavior are more closely related to monarch family of birds. The bird feeds on different types of insects which it catches during flight. W...