Monday 7 November 2022
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| Indian Garden Lizard - Salvador do Mundo |
Day 2, continued ...
It was a short drive from the Socorro Plateau down to the wetlands near the church of Salvador do Mundo, a relic of Goa's Portuguese colonists. Water
levels were very high (the site is probably tidal), leaving very little exposed mud suitable for waders or shorebirds. But all was not lost. Prakash parked at the start of a causeway
across the flooded area; nearby a lone Red-wattled Lapwing (below) stood on the top of a concrete retaining wall. A smart
bird, its range extends from Mesopotamia to south east Asia.
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| Red-wattled Lapwing - Salvador do Mundo |
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| View from Salvador do Mundo wetlands |
We left Prakash and the taxi, and headed down a track that ran between two waterbodies. As with all of the Indian wetlands that we
visited, a number of the birds were distinctly familiar, in this case Common Sandpiper,
Little and Great Egrets, Grey Heron, Greenshank, Common Kingfisher, Stonechat,
Barn Swallows, Purple Heron and a distant perched
Osprey. But others were more exotic,
including a Little Cormorant (below) that seemed untroubled by our presence, allowing a portrait to be taken.
It’s showing the brownish non-breeding
plumage; breeding adults are black.
Little Cormorants are the commonest (and the smallest) of India's cormorant species.
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| Little Cormorant - Salvador do Mundo |
Scanning the skies was a good idea here, as an Asian Openbill soon wheeled into view. Unlike their African
cousins, Asian Openbills have black and white plumage and a lighter-coloured bill with less of an obviously open gape. It is a common species of wetlands across most of India (but not
Pakistan) and its distribution is scattered through the rest of tropical Asia. A few minutes later it had been joined by a much larger Lesser Adjutant; the lower image shows the size difference. The two Adjutant species are in the
same genus as Africa’s Marabou Stork – Leptoptilos. But unlike the Marabou, both species are
under threat. Greater Adjutant, which has a very
restricted distribution in Assam and Cambodia, is classed by the IUCN as ‘endangered’, while
Lesser is merely ‘vulnerable’ – which is bad enough, so it was great to see one. Lesser Adjutant is a solitary species; its main food is aquatic animals (frogs
especially, I would guess) unlike Marabous – which will eat almost anything.  |
| Asian Openbill - Salvador do Mundo |
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| Lesser Adjutant (below) & Asian Openbill (above) |
We continued along the
path, which turned out to be a dead
end. Omkar’s sharp eyes spotted an Indian Garden Lizard Calotes versicolor (photo at the top of this blog) trying to blend in with the foliage.
What a fantastic reptile! We discovered that they are fairly common, being found all over India; a few more were to turn up on the trip. But that doesn’t reduce their
wonderfulness. Indian Garden Lizards are classed within
the Agamidae (agamas) rather than the Lacertidae (true lizards). Agamas (or ‘chisel-teeth lizards’) are the
Old World counterpart of the iguanas.
The difference is apparently in their respective tooth arrangements,
although (and I may well be wrong about this) agamas have a distinct ‘look’
that separates them from the sleeker lacertids.
Also called the Changeable Lizard, Calotes versicolor can change
colour; the males turn red and black in the breeding season.
We retraced our steps and Prakash drove us to another part of the wetland, where a road crossed the paddyfields. These had been recently
harvested and several waders were pecking around in a cleared area next to the road. Two species were present. The first, Temminck’s Stint (below) is a bird that I’ve only seen once before - in the UK - and that wasn’t a great view. It’s
a rather plain wader; in fact, its uniform plumage is one distinguishing factor
between it and the almost similar Little Stint. But the key give-away is the yellowish leg colour. Temminck’s Stints are common winter visitors
to India. They breed in the Arctic –
from Scandinavia east to the Bering
Straits - a huge contrast to this tropical wetland.
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| Temminck's Stint - Salvador do Mundo |
The other species probing the mud nearby was a Wood Sandpiper (below), which is also much more common in Goa than back in the UK. Wood
Sandpipers also breed in a wide band of boreal forest and tundra between Scandinavia to the Bering Straits, but occupy a
broader and generally more southerly breeding area than Temminck’s Stints.
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| Wood Sandpiper - Salvador do Mundo |
With that, Prakash drove us back to Arpora. A late afternoon walk took us down to the coast at Baga, a hive of activity with booming music from the beach bars and fishermen landing their catches at the river mouth. It was getting late for photography, but we got a brief glimpse of our first White-breasted Waterhen on exposed mud next to the Baga River, and had much better views of a White-breasted Kingfisher (below) sitting on a palm frond above the water. |
| White-breasted Kingfisher - Baga River, Arpora |
To be continued ...
