Bird Watching at Pallikaranai Marsh, Chennai

For a long time I wanted to go to Pallikaranai Marsh which is situated near my home.  The marsh was used as a garbage dump, but, now the government banned the dumping of garbage there.  It is now a protected land and a home to a variety of plants and animals.  This site is very famous for its wide diversity of birds.

On 27th April 2015, I was finally going!  Me along with my father and brother started at 5:45 a.m. and went to the marsh by our car.  We stopped at several spots to take pictures of the birds.  We also looked at them through binoculars which enabled clearer vision for us to see birds which were far away.  Here are some of the pictures we took:

Fulvous Whistling Ducks, Black-winged Stilts and Greater Flamingos

Fulvous Whistling Ducks. Black-winged Stilts, Purple Swamphens and Greater Flamingos

The birds seen here are Fulvous Whistling Ducks, Black-winged Stilts, Purple Swamphen and Greater Flamingos (sadly on the other side of the marsh).
Here are more photos:

Purple Swamphen and Common Moorhens

Common Moorhens

 In smaller parts of the marsh we spotted Purple Swamphen and Common Moorhen.

Cattle Egret

Cattle Egrets

Here are some photos of Cattle Egrets.  Other than that I also saw House Crows, Little Cormorants, Common Mynas, Black Drongos, Indian Pond Heron and Grey Heron. 

Overall it was a fun visit, it could've been better if the watch tower was opened, but we still had a lot of fun and this was an experience I will never forget.  

Bird Watching at Big Beach, Pondicherry

Me and my family regularly visit a resort owned by Club Mahindra called Big Beach.  I love visiting that place as they have a nice beach and also because of the activities & yummy food :) .  I heard a lot of chirping in the trees and wondered how the birds looked like.  So I took up the activity of birding also known as bird watching.  Here are some of the photographs of the birds I took:

House Crow

To attract some birds I put some fresh fruit in the balcony.  The only things I attracted were insects and crows.  Here is a photo of a House Crow having watermelon.

Red-vented Bulbuls

Red-vented Bulbul

These are some photos of Red-vented Bulbuls enjoying the shade and protection of the tree.  I was happy to spot these beautiful birds.

Purple-rumped Sunbird

Here is a photo of a female Purple-rumped Sunbird.  I consider myself lucky for being able to take a photo of this bird because a group sunbirds were flying everywhere really fast and I thought couldn't take a photo, but, luckily a female sunbird happened to perch on a branch and suck some nectar from the flowers, and then I took the photo :) .

Helmeted Gunieafowl

Helmeted Guineafowls

Near the beach I happened to see a rasp of  Helmeted Guineafowl.  These birds were very noisy.

Oriental Garden Lizard

I even took photographs of other animals like this beautiful Oriental Garden Lizard and......

Butterfly

a Butterfly with 2 separate heads!  Other than these I also spotted a Purple Sunbird and a Babbler (not sure whether Yellow-billed Babbler or Jungle Babbler).
My trip to Pondicherry was a very memorable trip and I will always be eager to go back for another visit.