My first vacation trip to India after a year run in China. Never had time to do a full time birding except for half a day in Coimbatore where my parents wanted to visit the famous Perur Pateeswarar temple. Couple of calls were made to Mohamed Saleem of CBC ,Gokul- Young Naturalist and bird photographer, Murugan Mohan, musician by profession, who is also a member of the Madras Naturalists Society happened to be in Coimbatore were part of the short birding trip to get  target birds : Chestnut-bellied Sandgrouse and Indian Courser .

Met everyone @ 8 AM on the outskirts of Kovai and I hopped on to Murugan’s car while my mom n dad continued to their destination.

The grouse’s playground was occupied by the Black Kite’s, the most common raptor all around.

Black Kite Black Kite Black Kite

No signs of the target birds. We roamed around to pick up the common species of scrub land, Bay-backed Shrike, Brown Shrike, Ashy Prinia, Greater Coucal, Cattle Egret, Common Kestrel,Green Bee-eater, Large Grey Babbler, Indian Silverbill, Indian Roller. A flock of Grey Partridges were crossing the dirt track giving some spectacular views.

Grey Partridge

Grey Partridge

While Murugan got interested by the flock of Large Grey Babblers shifting the bushes, we kept moving the car slowly to see any Babbler could come up on an open perch but we came across a big lifer of the day. “Rusty-tailed Flycatcher” gave some short views and disappeared.

Rusty-tailed Flycatcher

We searched the place to see the flycatcher but could not spot it any further. So we returned to the playground to see the target birds but that was a big dip.

Greater Coucal

Bay-backed Shrike

A short day with a big lifer, thus came to an end.