Like the previous years, this year too, we decided to start from Van Vihar, Karjat for our HSBC Bird Race 2009.
After weeks of bickering and talking to various vehicle owners for renting our vehicles for the bird race and failing in most cases or the costs being too prohibitive, two of our friends, Mohandas and Sanjeev decided to bring in their own vehicles for the bird race. So the two teams, the House Buntings led by Tushar Nidambur and our team the Black Ibis pooled in our resources and decide to hunt around for the species of birds found in our region
We had planned to leave at around 7.30 from Mulund as most participants stayed in and around Mulund except a few who were to come from Dombivli. Finally, we all assembled at the corner of Airoli Mulund crossover, arranged ourselves into the Qualis and Honda and proceeded to Karjat at around 8.30 pm, stopping by at the McDonalds in Navi Mumbai to pacify our growling stomachs and parched throats.
The ride was uneventful and the destination was reached at around 10.45, a bit later than usual due to the bad road conditions and also some very careful driving and negotiating the traffic on the roads.
A scrumptious, finger licking dinner of Rice Bhakri with Dal, Flower Bhaji and Baingan Bharit, followed by some Rice and Dal vanished into us in no time. Shivaji of Van Vihar did not disappoint us this time too on the food front !!
With stomachs full and intent on getting up early for the next day, beds were soon occupied and dreams unfolded. Before the dreams could reach their end, we were nudged awake by the insistent ringing of the alarms that were setup at 5.30 am. After the daily morning chores the “gang” got ready to hunt down the birds which were beginning to stir with the first rays of the Sunday sun
A quick walk down the riverside gave us the first view of the bird that we all wanted to see and had come all the way here to spot, the Brown Fish Owl. This bird has been nesting in this area for many years and it gave us a good dekko by flying off its perch and sitting on a tall tree. The bad morning light made it impossible to take a good photograph of the bird, though we all had a good look at it through our binocs and zoom lenses. With the light coming up, the bird count kept going up and up and up with some very interesting sightings, the most interesting being the Niligiri Wood Pigeon which was quite a find. 
A couple of photographs of this bird (though very far off on a tall tree) have been captured and are being scrutinized. This bird has not been sighted in this region for the last 10 years and hence was not included in the Log Book, but then these surprises make your day. We got almost around 50+ species in a couple of hours of birding including a Falcon which gave us a few minutes of really good open photography options and then flying away.
We returned to our dormitory by around 9.30 am, looking forward to a heavy breakfast of some delicious Poha and hot tea. After breakfast a few of them went for a small siesta and most of us, bored of sitting in, went for another round of birding, wishing to spot some more species for our tally. This turned out to be one of the most amazing decisions. We not only encounted a mixed hunting party of puff throated babblers, the common iora, a verditer and tickell’s blue flycatcher but also got some amazing close up shots of the white rumped shama which lent its songs for the hunt.
It was nearly past 11 am when we decided to move ahead and the calls of the short toed snake eagle was quite distinctly heard from a distance announcing that the activity of the raptors had started. By this time we were already joined by a larger group led by Abhijit Avalaskar and we all moved out of Karjat together, heading for the Gandhari Creek in Kalyan. On the route back, quite a few raptors, viz, Kestrels, White Eyed Buzzards, STSE’s were spotted and added to our tally. The flypast of a Montagu’s Harried had us all clicking away and admiring its beauty.
The Kalyan creek turned out to be quite good with a dozen more additions to the tally including some waders, ducks and a flock of Red Avadavats bidding us goodbye. Nilje turned out to be bad, with a very few species being spotted, which was quite unusual.Mahim Nature park added the usual Koel and Rosy Starlings to our tally, taking it upto 104, which was quite a tally, which we realized once the numbers started rolling in from the other groups.
Group Black Ibis : Ravi Vaidyanathan, Sagar Patil, Vaibhav Ranadive, Atul Kolhe, Sharvani Khare and Sanjeev Jain (our trekker, birder and driver for the current birding round)
Group House Bunting : Tushar Nidambur, Mohandas, Neeraj Chawla, Rahul, Vishal Jain (with Mohandas driving his Qualis and birding at the same time)
Thus ended a very exhausted and hot evening at the Mahim Nature Park, where we all bumped into our other birder friends, exchanged pleasantries over a hot cup of coffee and some veggie and non veggie snacks. Most of us, being too tired, decided to leave a bit early, most of us reaching home by around 10 pm and calling it a day, a memorable day indeed !!
Last but not the least, thanks a ton to Sunjoy Monga and his team for putting this up together and doing it for the fifth consequtive year....and a dream that this would continue to grow leaps and bounds in the coming years with more participants and a much more awareness spreading among the mass public about the environment and its conservation..
