Buff-breasted Sandpiper; I had not even heard of this bird. This was before the news that came in the birding community WhatsApp groups in Oct 2023. The bird had been sighted in Madayi Para, a laterite patch in Kannur, Kerala, India. Now why was this making big news? The Buff-breasted Sandpiper is considered a vagrant ..read more

In the year 2022, I had a female Taiga Flycatcher wintering in the area just behind my house. And what an experience it had been observing it, right from how my daughter noticed it. You must read about it here. Come winter migration time of 2023, I was hoping the Taiga Flycatcher would come again ..read more

White-fronted Geese; it was fascinating how not one but two White-fronted Geese came down to south of India together. This happened during the migration season in 2023. And to top it, one was a Greater White-fronted Goose and the other a Lesser White-fronted Goose! Hadinaru Kere is a lake near Mysuru city. Large number of ..read more

Andamans and Nicobar Islands; they are an island chain to the east of the Indian subcontinent. And being islands quite away from the mainland, over the years they have gotten some bird species that are endemics to them. So birding in these islands is something almost every birder is interested in doing. I was no ..read more

You may be wondering what is with the title of this blog post . Well that is exactly what I expressed when I heard of a sighting of the Sedge Warbler in Kerala. I had never heard of this bird before and it was even more surprising that was visiting India. But that is what happened. News had come in some birding WhatsApp group of the sighting of a Sedge Warbler in Kannur, a city in the northern part of Kerala, India. And the sighting was big! It is considered a vagrant to India and this was considered one of the very few reports, if not the first one. So you can imagine the attention it was ge ..read more

Ever witnessed the raw power of wild animal’s raw power first hand? What if that wild animal was a Rhino? Well, I was lucky (or may be unlucky as per some) to witness it first hand. This blog post is about my experience of a “Rhino Encounter”. To give you the right perspective of what a large and powerful animal an Indian Rhinoceros is, let me first give some facts about it. The Indian Rhinoceros, also known as the Greater One-horned Rhinoceros or Great Indian Rhinoceros, is a species native to the Indian subcontinent. An adult male weighs between 2.07 – 2.2 tonnes (i.e. 1877 kgs – 1995 kgs) a ..read more

The family trip to Siem Reap, Cambodia, was coming to an end. I had however managed to squeeze in a day for birding. When birding in new places, the usual practice I follow is to try and engage a local birding guide. I found this to be the most effective way for me, given that I have very limited time. It also a way of contributing to the livelihood of the local naturalists. This time I had got in touch with Cambodia Bird Guide Association (CBGA) as part of planning for the trip. The guide assigned to me was Naran. Naran was at my hotel lobby by 5:30am as promised. We had chosen to bird in two ..read more

Ta Prohm temple done, it was finally the turn of the most famous temple of Cambodia; Angkor Wat. To do it justice we had dedicated the whole afternoon to it. Angkor Wat is a Hindu-Buddhist temple complex that is a site of around 162 hectares. It was built in the early 12th century. In fact it is the largest religious structure in the world! You can read more about the temple here. The grandeur starts right from the outside as you approach it. Here are some photos taken from the road across the moat that surrounds it: Here is the Naga at the start of the causeway leading to the entrance of Ang ..read more

We had completed going around the Bayon temple and few others in Angkor Thom. And now it was time to visit one of our much anticipated temple; Ta Prohm. If you have seen the Lara Croft: Tomb Raider film, then you will recognise this temple. And boy, did it live up to our expectations! The temple was built some time in the 12th century as a Buddhist monastery and centre of learning. As some point in the 15th century, it was abandoned. And nature took over. Trees took root in the loosened stones. And what a unique mix this has created! Given this, during restoration efforts in the 21st century ..read more

It was our second day in Siem Reap. On the previous day we had covered the Banteay Srei and Banteay Samre temples. And now it was time to explore more of the main temples. Based on the advice of our tour guide, we decided to cover the temples around Angkor Thom in the first half. Angkor Thom was the last capital city of the Khmer Empire. It is said to cover an area of 9 sq. kms. In this are contained several monuments. We entered the complex from the South Gate. For this we had to cross over a bridge of gods and demons. And each side is a body of a seven-headed naga (snake). And as we passed t ..read more