Krishna Girish's Birding Blog: Birding in Chennai

CHENNAI BIRDING

It was my cousin's first birthday, and they lived in Chennai, so, we went there to celebrate his birthday. Over there, we decided to go to the Muttukadu Backwaters, an inlet of water where, when we visited last time, had given us over 20 Caspian Terns, Great Crested Terns, Little, Gull-billed, and a wide variety of other terns. This time, the driver, from Chennai Taxi, took us through a route double the length, where we skipped going past Pallikaranai Wetlands, where we saw plenty of Purple Herons (not to mention a Crab-plover) last time. We stopped a marsh on the way, and that was a good place to stop. We saw around 15 Pheasant-tailed Jacanas, lots of Great and Median Egrets, and to our surprise, Curlew and Terek Sandpipers! It was another 1/2 hour before we reached Muttukadu. Over there, in the boating area, we saw Heuglin's, Pallas's, Yellow-legged, Brown-headed and Black-headed Gulls, Caspian, Little, Gull-billed, Common, Lesser Crested and White-winged Terns, Painted Storks, Great Egrets and Spot-billed Pelicans amongst others. In the fishing area, there were hundreds of waders, which we identified to be a variety of different species; Common Greenshanks, Spotted and Common Redshanks, Ruff, Black-tailed Godwit and Dunlins, just to name a few. On the way back, we took the regular path back through Pallikaranai, and saw a large variety of waders there as well. Some of the species we were able to identify were all lifers for me; Broad-billed Sandpiper, Swinhoe's, Common, Jack and Pintail Snipes, and others. We went back after totally seeing 67 different species that day. This is the list: