Back in the early days of my photography work I traveled to Thattekkad Bird Sanctuary, and hired Eldhose, one of the finest bird guides in Kerala, as my guide. The Salim Ali Bird Sanctuary (also commonly known as the Thattekad Sanctuary) is located in the Kothamangalam Taluk of Ernakulam district on the northern bank of the Periyar river. The sanctuary was created in 1983 based on a recommendation made by Dr. Salim Ali many years previously. Ali described Thattekad in the 1930’s as the richest bird habitat in peninsular India, comparable only with the eastern Himalayas. Since then much of the forest has been converted to cultivation of teak and mahogany plantation but what survives gives a glimpse of the phenomenal bird diversity of the once widespread lowland forests of Kerala.

When I arrived Eldhose was waiting for me at the park entrance and helped me check into a home stay which is inside the sanctuary. I dumped my luggage and immediately was ready with my gear to head to the park. Our main target for the morning was to get the Ceylon (or Srilankan) frogmouth. The weather wasn’t on my side and it was drizzling. I always carry a huge plastic cover to protect my camera and lens, so with the little showers accompanying us, we set out in to the forest.

We reached the watch tower and Eldhose asked me to wait there while he went into the woods. He came back with a big smile as there were three frogmouths perched on a single branch. We spent some time with these and tried out various experiments with exposure. The rest of morning we roamed around in search of other winged beauties. We returned for some delicious Kerala food. I took a small nap after lunch and resumed photography at 2:30pm. In the afternoon, we went to Cuckoo paradise where we were greeted by a common Indian cuckoo. I spent the whole of afternoon photographing the various species we found there. Later in the evening we tried to photograph the Jerdons Nightjar and returned to base, had good dinner and retired for the day.

The next morning we took a bus and traveled around 15km and got down in the middle of nowhere. It was raining continuously till we reached this place. Fortunately it stopped as we started our photography. The habitat here was excellent to find the western ghat endemics. Though we saw a lot of birds, photographing them in this habitat was a challenge. I wished I had longer reach of lens and also wished the birds were at eye level. We are always tied with these limitations in bird photography. We took a bus back to the sanctuary and arrived in time for lunch. Later in the afternoon, Eldhose took me to another beautiful location inside the sanctuary. This location reminded me of Bannerghatta National Park with the entire rocky habitat. We spent time till evening with the rain god showing some mercy on us. Though I could not get too many images here, the location charged me up and I was enjoying every bit of time I spent here. I decided to visit this place again in November.

One of the “must photograph” birds on my list was the white bellied shortwing. Eldhose helped me to locate the bird. It was in the shoals and not coming out. After trying for some time, we went back to a flowering tree where more birds were present. After a while we heard the call of the white bellied shortwing and went back to the same location where we had seen it. This time I could see it in the open. But before I could approach it, it disappeared. I cursed myself for not taking a record shot of it in the open. I waited in front of that open perch for a while. Suddenly out of nowhere it flew in and sat right in front of me at minimum focusing distance for my 500mm + 1.4x converter. I immediately started clicking. Since it was there for a long time, I managed to get some nice photographs. There were no bounds to my joy after photographing it. Later that night I previewed the images at the hotel and knew I had my catch of the day.

You can find the full trip report on my website The Junglelook.