Birding at the estuary over the Christmas break

Do the scuttle dance - by Madras Wanderer is my Substack post on the ghost crabs I saw.

And here is My Ebird trip report of the birds I spotted cross the 5 five days I wandered along the broken bridge and beaches.

Where the river meets the sea

Around Christmas, the tide was low in the morning. and I could stand under the pillars of the broken bridge.

In the first week of the year, the tide was high when I wandered, and the broken bridge pillars were under water.  I like this picture of all 3 white egrets - the little in the middle, the median on the right and the Great/Large one to the left.  

I enjoyed watching a Common Sandpiper one morning, walking and bobbing.  

The paths of the sandpiper and the Kentish Plover seemed to cross but they both ignored each other, and ignored me too.  A trio of solitude-seekers it seemed.

Spot-billed pelicans would flypast,

as also an occasional Caspian Tern

As I would walk back, away from the beach and onto the road, I would invariably see either one or sometimes two hoopoes, having a mud bath, poking for worms, furling and unfurling their crests in that most endearing fashion.

The Prickly Pears were blooming.

The house sparrows would be the last birdies I saw as I walked back through the Urur Kuppam streets, with the village strays announcing my presence in a relay of barking, one stray alerting the next to the intruder's presence.