Oh the irony! Having told Vinod a couple of days ago that I wasn't interested
in chasing owls anymore because I didn't agree with the playback and
spotlights, today we came across possibly the rarest owl of the lot in broad
daylight! Vinod said to me later that in his opinion my entire five day trip
to Thattekad would have been worth if the only bird I had seen was Sri Lanka bay
owl!
In truth it performed in much the same way as the Sri Lanka frogmouths,
it just sat there and didn't move, pretty uninspiring really, but even so, I was delighted to see
it. Also in this area, my best view so far of Loten's sunbird.
Then at my request we headed back to the bridge over the River Periyar and spent the last hour of daylight there. Not quite as good as yesterday with less little swifts and no white-bellied woodpecker, but we were compensated by two pied kingfishers and a couple of green imperial pigeons, and I was pleased that there were now three dusky crag martins flying around looking like they were about to roost. I'm not sure if Vinod believed me yesterday when I told him about the martins, so it was pleasing to get him onto them today.
Finally this evening, as I sat on my balcony eating my dinner, I heard the now familiar call of great-eared nightjar, and then suddenly there it was flying over the trees just a few meters away. Amazingly it landed for a minute and continued calling until eventually it headed off towards the lake to feed.
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