One early morning last week, seeing clear skies, we decided to go to Nanmangalam reserve forest (which is about 20 km from my house). By the time we were halfway there, dark clouds started piling up all of a sudden from nowhere! We were in half a mind to turn back, we proceeded nonetheless.
Sun was peeping through the clouds on and off. We reached there, parked and started walking into the forest. We reached a large clearing which is one of my favourite birding spots in Nanmangalam and saw that part of it had become a small pond due to the rains over the past few weeks.
We saw several cormorants, little egrets and cattle egrets fly away from the water as we walked closer. The calls of Greater Coucals and Laughing doves were teasing us as we were trying to spot the birds.
Suddenly, this Shikra (picture on the right) majestically flew out of nowhere and perched on a tree closeby, giving chance for a couple of pics, before flying off again. We saw light fading quickly and noticed dark clouds covering up the sky. Before we could even think of what to do, it started pouring. Heavily.
Packing the camera in a polythene bags and stuffing them in to the camera bag, we started walking. But, there was no shelter as we were in the middle of the forest. After a 15 minutes walk, we reached the road and took shelter in a house there. The owner of that house was so friendly and was speaking to us for about half an hour.
The rains stopped, and we were tempted to go back into the forest. But, the dark clouds were still threatening.
But having come that far and having been drenched anyway, we thought we'll go back in to the forest. The rain seemed to have sent all the birds back to their nests and we couldn't find much activity, barring a few purple rumped sun-birds and ashy prinias. As the sun started to peep through the clouds again, couple of Green Bee-eaters came out to dry their wings and started preening, giving us more photo opportunities.
Another short spell of rain and spotting of a few of our regular favourite birds (Oriental Magpie Robins, Black drongos etc) later, we returned - with a few photos and some good bird sightings.
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