Sunday, April 27, 2008

GOA INDIA

One of the areas you will bird watch from at Backwoods, good for Raptors as well. Tambi surla temple

Butterflies

We saw hundreds of Butterflies of several species, 3-4 weeks before we arrived it rained and put water back into some of the dried up pools and rivers,this made the Butterflies emerge a few weeks earlier than normal, though what the knock on effect of this will be no one knows yet, but its not good, Global Warming at work maybe.
As well as ones pictured below we also saw, Common Bluebottle, Common Jay, the awesome, Malabar Banded Peacock, several small blues, Common Grass Yellow and Spot Swordtail to name a few.

COMMON INDIAN CROW

COMMON ROSE

GLASSY TIGER

STRIPED TIGER

TAWNY COSTER

MALABAR GIANT SQUIRREL

We saw at least a dozen of these massive squirrels around backwoods Camp, they are about a metre long and make one hell of a racket when calling, we also saw Palm Squirrels which were very common eveywere, they look like Chipmunks, other mammals seen included Rats, Mice, Grey Mongoose and Indian Hare. Several species of Bats were seen from Pip sized ones th huge Fruit Bats



Western Ghats Flying Lizard

Look hard enough its there on the tree, and they do fly, awesome we only saw two this one, and one that leapt across several metres in front of me.

Lizards

We saw several species of Lizards, Skinks and Gecko's, plus two Snakes and about 5 species of Frog/Toad




Indian Bison


INDIAN ELEPHANT

Awesome creatures, especially the one at Backwoods Camp.

Bonnet Macaque

Not as common as the Langurs which we saw everywere, including in Hotel grounds, we only saw the Macaque's at Backwoods Camp.

Black Faced Langur



Saturday, April 26, 2008

BRONZE WINGED JACANA

CARAMBOLIN LAKE GOA

Brahminy Kite

Apora





ASIAN BLACK KITE

Various places around hotel area Goa



PHEASANT TAILED JACANA

Bhatim and Carambolin Lakes difficult to get any close ones though.



Cotton Pygmy Goose

Beautiful Little Duck, Bhatim lake


GREEN BEE EATER

Stunning Bee Eater, smaller than the European One, Arpora Goa April 2008


LESSER WHISTLING DUCK

A carpet of these ducks at the back of the lake, we counted over two thousand, none at Carombolin they had all moved to Bhatim due to works at the larger lake. Goa April 2008