India Holiday - Saturday 3 January – Dewalokam

The clouds had come in yesterday afternoon and there’s no air-conditioning in the rooms at Dewalokam and we’d been bitten by something during the afternoon so we tried to sleep with the windows closed. After about an hour-and-a-half we gave up and opened the windows as the air in the room was uncomfortably humid. With the windows open the air cooled quite quickly so we only had to contend with the dogs that barked for most of the night and then from around 4am the Cockerels, though no more bites... so it was a relief when the alarm went at 06:15. We headed off at 7am, fording the river at its shallowest point, with boots and socks slung over our shoulders and headed into the forest. During our four-and-a-half hour walk we identified 25 species of bird, heard many more, saw glimpses of others and have two we’re going to phone a friend about. Species of note included a Blue-throated Flycatcher, however it only hung about long enough for me to snap a couple of record shots of the underside of the bird, of which this is one:
















and a Large Woodshrike:














I was also pleased with this picture of a Black-hooded Oriole sat in the light:




















The last section of our walk took us into an area of the forest used as a roost by Fruit bats, they were making a terrific racket and it was quite amazing to see thousands of them hanging from trees in broad daylight like this:














It was then back to the resort, fording the river once more, where some very helpful ladies provided us with towels to dry our feet before we put our boots back on. The afternoon and evening was spent relaxing, but the air was more humid than ever and the birds were very quiet (probably too humid for them too!). This is view back across the river: