Thattekad Kerala Short Birding Tours

The coastal town of Kochi in Kerala is ideally placed to begin our tour. You arrive in Kochi and our driver or tour guide picks you up at the airport and drives you to Thattekad. It's a 70-km journey and takes no longer than 2 hours by cab.

We check into a pre-booked resort at Thattekad around noon and, after a short lunch and rest break, we commence birding for the day. Thattekad easily tops among the best birding hotspots of South India. We begin the afternoon birding by exploring the areas around the resort, and, if time permits, we may even venture deeper into the Thattekad Bird Sanctuary, which is home to about 322 species of birds.

The good thing about Thattekad is that it has plenty of opportunity for night birding as well. So, the birders greedy for more hours in the field can actually squeeze in some nocturnal birding at the day's tail end. Dinner and overnight at the resort.

Thattekad Bird Sanctuary is a low-land forest spread out over an area of 25 square kilometres between two branches of Kerala's longest river, the Periyar. It is the oldest bird sanctuary in Kerala and to this day it remains the best place to see several endemic and migratory birds of the Western Ghats. That's the reason for three back-to-back full days of birdwatching at Thattekad Bird Sanctuary.

On the first day, we explore the best birding trails of Thattekad to look for the most sought-after avian specialties. Our target for the day includes Malabar Trogon, Spot-billed Pelican, Great Cormorant, Black-crowned Night-Heron, Malayan Night-Heron, Yellow Bittern, Chestnut Bittern, Black Bittern Dupetor, Black Baza, Brahminy Kite, Indian White-backed Vulture, Crested Goshawk, Eurasian Sparrowhawk, Rufous-bellied Eagle, Red Spurfowl, Grey Junglefowl, Slaty-legged Crake, Ruddy-breasted Crake, River Tern, Sooty Tern, Whiskered Tern, White-winged Black Tern, Nilgiri Wood-Pigeon, Pompadour Green-Pigeon, Green Imperial-Pigeon, Blue-winged (Malabar) Parakeet, Large Hawk-Cuckoo, Common Hawk Cuckoo, Banded Bay Cuckoo, Indian Plaintive Cuckoo, and Lesser Coucal, among others.

Birding continues well after sundown, as we look for nocturnal birds such as Oriental Bay-Owl, Oriental Scops-Owl, Collared Scops Owl, Spot-bellied Eagle-Owl, Brown Fish-Owl, Brown Hawk-Owl, Ceylon Frogmouth, Great Eared-Nightjar, Jerdon's Nightjar, and Savanna Nightjar. Dinner and overnight at the Thattekad Resort.

On each of the three days of birdwatching at Thattekad, we explore different birding trails. For instance, birds like Grey-headed Bulbul and Wayanad Laughing Thrush can be hard to come by, but the trails at Urulanthanni at the far end of the bird sanctuary throws up a few prized sightings of these two beauties.

Our targets for the day's birding includes more avian specialties of Thattekad, such as Malabar Grey Hornbill, Malabar Pied Hornbill, Crested Tree-Swift, Blue-eared Kingfisher, Oriental Dwarf Kingfisher, Blue-bearded Bee-eater, Dollarbird, Common Hoopoe, White-cheeked Barbet, Crimson-throated Barbet, Coppersmith Barbet, Speckled Piculet, Rufous Woodpecker, White-bellied Woodpecker, Heart-spotted Woodpecker, Indian Pitta, Richard's Pipit, Large Cuckoo-Shrike, Black-headed Cuckoo-Shrike, Large Woodshrike, Black-crested Bulbul, White-browed Bulbul, Yellow-browed Bulbul, Black Bulbul, Blue-winged Leafbird, Golden-fronted Leafbird, Asian Fairy-Bluebird, Blue-headed Rock-Thrush, Blue Rock-Thrush, Malabar Whistling-Thrush, and Scaly Thrush.

At night, we again probe the woods for nightjars, frogmouths and owls, who are not few in number, before returning to our resort for dinner and overnight.

The third consecutive day of birding at Thattekad targets new trails and revisits the old ones that yielded maximum sightings. We may spot again several birds previously seen. But we also come upon newer sightings to mark off more birds in the Thattekad checklist.

The new sightings includes those of Eurasian Blackbird, Indian Blue Robin, Spotted Babbler, Indian Scimitar-Babbler, Black-headed Babbler, Western Crowned Warbler, Orphean Warbler, Asian Brown Flycatcher, Rusty-tailed Flycatcher, Brown-breasted Flycatcher, Nilgiri Flycatcher, White-bellied Blue-Flycatcher, Blue-throated Flycatcher, Black-naped Monarch-Flycatcher, Black-lored Yellow Tit, Thick-billed Flowerpecker, Tickell's Flowerpecker, Purple-rumped Sunbird, Crimson-backed Sunbird, Loten's Sunbird, White-rumped Munia, Black-throated Munia, Baya Weaver, Chestnut-tailed Starling, Blyth's Starling, Southern Hill-Myna, and White-bellied Treepie.

One more evening excursion for nocturnal birding rounds up our day. At night, we return to the resort for dinner and overnight.

After breakfast, we pack up and drive you for two hours to Kochi. We drop you at the airport for your onward journey. The Kerala birding holiday comes to an end.