India day 6 - No- one told the birds we were coming

One thing to remember is that the wildlife doesn't know you're coming. An early start, Masala chai and biscuits and we headed for a site for Grey Hypocolious, although no-one had seen any yet this year, the rains had been late and the bushes were only just flowering, no berries for them to feed on. We arrived and walked out across some fields of castor to the favoured spot, but although we gave it over an hour, no luck. We did see at least 2 Marshall's Iora which was a bonus, plus lots of larks, bulbuls, common babbler and grey fronted prinia.
We then headed for an area of dried lake bed and volcanic mounds to look for Red-tailed wheatear, which was found just as we were about to start breakfast. Also floating past was a Montague's Harrier. After breakfast, with chai, we drove round the grasslands seeing Grey Frankolin, lots of common cranes, curlew and larks before returning via a small water trough overflow. Along the bank was a lovely Bluethroat and dropping down to drink were Chestnut-shouldered Petronias. A stop and walk through the scrub and over some volcanic mounds and we were shown an Eagle Owl resting in the shade of a tree. We spent a little time watching and photographing it before heading back to the car.
As we headed back for lunch the guide got a call to say there was a Caracal taken into care, would we like to see it, YES! The poor thing had been in an accident and they were going to help it recover before releasing it back into the wild, sad to see it in a cage but beautiful.






Lunch at the Lodge.
Afternoon return for bustards but again no luck, trying to find 1 of only 15 birds in this vast expanse is very difficult but we gave it a try. We also saw Stolicza's ... Hundreds of larks, stonechat, finishing up with nearly 30 Montague and Pallid Harriers swooping around us as they went to roost in the grasslands.


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