After my adventures and misadventures, next on my schedule was to do birding in and around Jamnagar city. Here again, with the help of Falguna, I was in contact with Chiku (Chirag Joshi) who had arranged everything including cab, tickets, accommodation and had chosen the birding spots to visit and would be guiding me during my stay.
The first thing I liked in Jamnagar was the weather, brilliant for a coastal city (can be as its just located near the Gulf of Kutch). Tea was another delight delighting my taste buds every time I sipped tea. I loved the Gujju food I had all through my stay and Chiku handpicked locations that served the best of the varieties on offer. Also, the number of 'paan' shops outnumbered any other shops in Jamnagar and the couple I tasted were too good to say the least.
The people I encountered, met and saw right from Ahmedabad to Kutch are addicted to either paan or tobacco and one such auto driver I met said he could stay without food or water but not without paan!
Back to the birding part, I was bowled over completely by the variety in offer I could see in Jamnagar. Being my first coastal birding, I was at my wits end trying to figure out what is what. From a distance, all of these look alike unless you observe them carefully for the differentiating features. Not only that, I saw them in hundreds all over the birding spots and on the roads too and the Rosy Starlings show at Lakhota lake was just pure bliss.
The tide timings went a little haywire for me but still with just about 2 days, I added 41 new species to my list (excluding about 60 odd I had seen over the last few days) making it a very productive trip to say the least. Contrarily, I would have missed out easily about 20-30 species but nevertheless that would be covered on my next trip here right :)
I birded along Charakla, Dhinchda, Narara-Marine National Park, Khijadiya bird sanctuary, Balachadi and Lakhota lake over the two days I stayed in Jamnagar. I stayed at the recommended President Hotel for a hassle free comfortable stay.
The posts of Jamnagar will be more of photo-logs than write-ups and hope you enjoy each of them... Stay tuned!
Gujarat Diaries so far...
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