23rd Jan, 2010: Started the day with an excyrsion to the Naliya Grasslands. The trip started off well with spotting of a Male Pallid Harrier soaking up the heat of the early morning sun. As soon as we had enough of the Harrier we spotted another beautiful lifer Black Francolin.
There after we saw a Long legged Buzzard and again the Black Francolin who was passionately calling and gave excellent poses. The highlight of Naliha was a small waterhole where dozens of chestnut bellied Sand grouse come to drink. Along with the Sand grouse are Bimaculate Larks. Got some very interesting pictures here.
After Naliha we drove to Mandavi about 60 odd Kilometer and from there to Motwa village beach. Motwa is fishing village and the beach is pretty much untouched by tourist and thus largely unpolluted. The target species here was the Crab Plover – Crab Plover is an unusual bird belonging to monotypic genus Dromadidae. In zoology a monotypic genus is one which has only one species. We got a glimpse of a Crab Plover as soon as we reached… Here for the first time I saw Flamigos swim – never knew they could!
There were a whole lot of other lifers for me here like the Eurasian Oyster catcher, Reef Egret, Ruddy Turnstone and Great thick knee to name a few. Aasim caught a glimpse of a McQueen’s Bustard in flight but unfortunately it was too fast to take a picture. The long walk on the beach was refreshing and brought back memories of Alibaug for me. Which is where I took a first real vacation with Swati.
On the gadget front I am quite disappointed with Canon 50D because of its poor battery life and dust reaching and sticking on the sensor despite not changing the lens even once in the entire trip.
The most tiring part of the day was traveling in the Trax! Thankfully tomorrow will not involve much traveling on the roads….
