Storks, snipe and sunbirds

13^th February

I am discovering, as if I didn’t know it already from fourteen years in the job, that leading tours and writing blogs are mutually incompatible. There is simply too much to do and, after hours and hours of explaining plans, fixing problems, finding birds and helping clients to see them, there is neither time nor energy for stringing words together coherently, even if the coherent stringing of words had ever been a forte of mine. I feared as much.

Nonetheless, today has been a beautiful day, with many highlights. In the morning we visited Majuli Island, stopping at two celebrated vaishnavite monasteries, Auniati Satra (excellent birding and several grey pansy butterflies) and Uttar Kamalabari (spectacular drumming and dancing plus our first peacock pansy butterfly). This afternoon we set sail downriver and delighted in the thousands of ducks and geese which line the silty banks of this magnificent river and in the death-eyed eagles and falcons which gather here to hunt them. A terrific spectacle, unless you were the duck in question, was a white-tailed eagle bearing down on a panicked spotbill. The duck escaped and the eagle went hungry. Life is cruel.

New today

	Mammals
19	small Indian mongoose	Herpestes javanicus
	Birds
208	dusky warbler	Phylloscopus fuscatus
209	common tailorbird	Orthotomus sutorius
210	black-rumped flameback	Dinopium benghalense
211	red-throated flycatcher	Ficedula albicilla
212	Tickell’s leaf-warbler	Phylloscopus affinis
213	shikra	Accipiter badius
214	chestnut-tailed starling	Sturnus malabaricus
215	oriental skylark	Alauda gulgula
216	scaly-breasted munia	Lonchura punctulata
217	streaked weaver	Ploceus manyar
218	pheasant-tailed jacana	Hydrophasianus chirurgus
219	pied harrier	Circus melanoleucos
220	red-crested pochard	Netta rufina
221	rosy pipit	Anthus roseatus
222	little ringed plover	Charadrius dubius
223	cinnamon bittern	Ixobrychus cinnamomeus
224	oriental honey-buzzard	Pernis ptilorhynchus
225	eastern baya weaver	Ploceus philippinus burmanicus
226	thick-billed warbler	Acrocephalus aedon
227	spotted owlet	Athene brama
228	pin-tailed snipe	Gallinago stenura
229	crimson sunbird	Aethopyga siparaja
230	greenish warbler	Phylloscopus trochiloides
231	black-crowned night-heron	Nycticorax nyticorax
232	ashy drongo	Dicrurus leucophaeus
233	red collared dove	Streptopelia tranquebarica
234	scarlet-backed flowerpecker	Dicaeum cruentatum
235	greater spotted eagle	Aquila clanga
236	golden-fronted leafbird	Chloropsis aurifrons
237	lesser whistling-duck	Dendrocygna javanica
238	white-tailed eagle	Haliaeetus albicilla
239	black stork	Ciconia nigra
240	long-legged buzzard	Buteo rufinus
241	small pratincole	Glareola lactea
242	black-necked stork	Ephippiorhynchus asiaticus
243	sand lark	Calandrella raytal

2012 Totals

Mammals: 19

Birds: 243

Reptiles: 0

Amphibians: 0

Fish: 0