A bit of Urbanish Birding in Southern India

We have recently returned from a full on holiday to the south of India, starting in Chennai and working our way across and down to Kochi in Kerala. It wasn't a birding holiday but of course we were always on the look out and a few short opportunities did present themselves. We achieved 75 species of birds and a few other things along the way. Photo opportunities therefore were few as mainly I had the wrong lens on the camera for birding, it was was set up for sight-seeing.

However.....
We start with a bit of Urban Birding, the most common bird you will see in India, the House Crow.

 A Lizard, haven't sorted out the species yet!

 Common Myna

 and a Palm Squirrel.

In all the towns we visited the next most common bird after the House Crow, is probably the Black Kite, they were just everywhere. (Not complaining though!)

Again with visiting a lot of towns and cities, it's difficult to get a natural photo of some birds, so you will have to put up with a Green Bee-eater on a wire.

 Another common birds as you would expect was the Cattle Egret, with so many cows around, they know where their 'pat' is buttered.

 Macaques were also a common sight.

 Less common was the Olive-backed Sunbird,

 the Short-toed Eagle

 and even the House Sparrow.

We spent some time travelling between places, and while the distances weren't that great, the travel times could be! Although this was tempered with driving through some national parks, stopping not allowed, but presenting some photo opportunities:
Spotted Deer

 and Grey Langur

In Ooty we visited the botanical gardens, but not much in the way of bird life, this was down to the fact the gardens were full of non-endemic trees and plants so the birds didn't come in apart from some Oriental White-eye.

A rest room stop on the edge of another park provided a bit of action.
Bonnet Macaques,

 Not sure on this one!

 Little Cormorant,

 Bonnet Macaque,

 and Long-legged Buzzard.

The as we approached Munnar we had a treat....
Firstly a Niligri Langur,

 the a family of wild Elephants wandering through a Tea Plantation. Made our day!

That will do for now! The next stage of our trip was much more rural, except for Kochi where there is some great Urban Birding to be had, plus a cruise around the Kerala backwaters and ovenight on a houseboat. All this to come 😀😄😄😄