Thattekad, Munnar and the Nilgiris: an Expedition Through Parts of Kerala and Tamil Nadu. Part-1

Trip Summary

We went to Thattekad, Munnar and the Nilgiris from 5-9 June 2026 and found 12 lifers and 110 birds. We covered all types of habitat from the scrublands of Mettupalayam to the high-altitude shola forests of Munnar. This is a blog about all our 12 lifers and how I saw them.

 Part-1 Thattekad Bird Sanctuary (sec-1)

1.    Crested Goshawk

A bird which looks similar to a Shikra and a Besra but the Goshawk has a noticeably bigger built. We saw it 3 times over the course of the trip but we saw it for the first time while stopping for Chai and we saw 2 Goshawks were sitting on a tree stump.

2.     Blue Eared Kingfisher

A bird which we needed to put in effort for. In our ‘Namdapha Mishmi Dihing’ trip we near missed the Blue Eared Kingfisher because while we were looking for it a Burmese Elephant passed us 3 meters away. While looking for it this time we got 10 leeches each on our shoes which is not as extreme but this time we got a very good sighting. You could make out the radiant colors are different from the Common Kingfisher aside from the other differences.

3.    Sri Lanka Frogmouth

An extremely camouflaged and weird bird. It is overconfident on its camouflage even though it has a good camouflage. We saw 2 frogmouths sitting a foot away from us male and female both in their camouflaged brown and white pattern with their gloomy yellow eyes.

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