Sewri- The Flamingo days are back (27th Nov'05)

Hi Folks,

After the SGNP in the morning, I, along with Sahshank and a colleague, went to Sewri for a brief visit to check out the arrival of Flamingos on 27th Nov’05 Evening…..

It was a low tide and the birds were very far and with an old ship docked nearby for repairs and banging away, the birds were a bit farther away from the shore….we had a spotting scope though and could see the Lesser flamingos (About 400-500) at far end near the BPCL refinery towers…….However no Greater flamingos……the number is expected to increase in few days.

We had planned to stay only for few mins. But the many curious families that came to see flamingos were looking disappointed at not seeing them (with the naked eyes), so had to volunteer to show them thro’ the scope and explain some facts….surprisingly all of them seemed to know about the proposed sealink.

The sight of the flamingos (thro’ the scope) put a smile on their face, One person even offered us “Watermelon” from a fruitwalla, who sure knew where to park his moving store.

Other birds sighted were, Terek, Curlew, Broadbilled & Common Sandpipers, Pacific Golden & Grey Plovers, Lesser & Greater sand plovers, Little stints, Black tailed Godwits, Curlews, Wimbrels, Common Red & Green Shanks, O.White Ibis, Gull-billed terns, Little, Intermediate, Reef & Great egrets…..and many gulls & terns that were far enough for any id.

Sashank pointed out some black waders…..I instantly thought of spotted Red shanks in breeding plumage…but wait….on closer look, they revealed as oil bathed Curlew / braodbilled sandpipers (Several)…..a day later, Sanshank visited Sewri again and informed of an oil layer on the water near the Excise/customs office end…..on the last visit to Sewri with Mr.Ananth, we saw few Black tailed Godwits with black mask and I had jokingly said that these were the Masked Godwits…now I realized that it was afterall the oil that was responsible for the mask.

Once again for those who wish to go to sewri:

The best time to see Flamingos is 3 hrs before or 2 hrs after the high tide (when the birds are nearer to the shore). The tide timings can be found out from the following site:

http://www.mobilegeographics.com:81/locations/658.html

The Flamingo days are back……….

Cheers!!
Addi The Birde