All pelagic trips in Kerala is organised by the Malabar Natural History Society in association with the fisheries department. It didn’t take me much time to decide when I saw the email. Sept 24th and 25th were the dates. The weather forecast looked favourable. We were to board the boat from Kannur coast on Sept 24th morning and head back the next day. A few of us from Bangalore started at about 4pm on Friday, Sept 23rd and reached Kannur by 2am. It is a nightmare to travel on that road. The roads were in real bad shape due to the rains. We checked into the hotel at about 2am and my sleep cycle was completely disturbed. After wandering around on the streets of Kannur till 4am, I had just managed get some sleep when it was time to get ready for the pelagic at 6am. But the boatmen took their own sweet time to arrive because of which we left from the harbour only at 8am.

Sept 24th, 8am
Twenty four of us begin our journey into the Arabian sea after loading food and water into the boat. The boat was getting cleaned at the same time and I think it got a wash of its lifetime which made it look very clean now. On the weather front, It was quite sunny and humid. The sea was unbelievably calm. We see Brahminy Kites, Black Kites and Lesser Crested Terns.

Sept 24th, 9am
Not very far from the shore, we sighted our first pelagic bird of the trip. It was the Arctic Skua. We hadn’t sighted a Bridled Tern yet. But Arctic Skua being the first pelagic sighting was exciting. People started clicking, the skua was flying at a distance. The plumage was very different from what I had see on my last trip in April. We see a few Common Terns too and a Crimson Rose butterfly in migration. Unbelievable to see tiny butterflies crossing the sea.

Sept 24th, 10am
We get our first sighting of the Bridled Terns only now. We saw about 25 of them within a span of about 40mins. Some of them were in flight and the rest were perched on the trash (read thermocol).

Sept 24th, 11.41am
Its been more than an hour or so without any interesting sighting. We are constantly scanning across hoping to see a new bird. We saw a small bird flying swiftly. At one look, I couldn’t make out what it was. Dipu called out saying it was a storm petrel, the Wilson’s Storm Petrel. I didn’t get a great look because it was quite far and to see its white band just above its tail isn’t an easy task. But of course, a new bird to our list. It was a lifer for me. Within a few minutes, we saw 2 Golden Plovers flying behind our boat. It was an amazing experience to see 2 of them on their migratory path. They weren’t on their way to the Indian shores, so we probably think they were on their way to Maldives.

Wilson’s Strom Petrel – the white band on the tail is prominent.

Sept 24th, 1.32pm
After the sighting of the Wilson’s Storm, there haven’t been any great sightings. The afternoon was quite dull. We did see our first Greater Crested Tern and lot of Bridled Terns. There was lunch and I did have a few boiled eggs with rice. The toughest part is not the food but the heat. It is really a tiring but yet a fun exercise. At about 1.32pm, we got our first sighting of the Flesh-footed Shearwater. I would easily confuse it with the Persian Shearwater but thankfully they arrive they a different time. The pale bill with a black tip is very distinctive. So yeah, this was a new bird for me. We saw about 2 of them within a span of a few minutes.

Flesh-footed Shearwater

Sept 24th, 2.45pm
It was quite a dull period for bird sighting in the afternoon post lunch. We did see a few Black and Yellow Sea Snakes (Pelamis platurus) and they kept us busy. They are so gorgeous. The fishermen bought the fish from the other boats for our consumption. There were negotiations over the price happening in the middle of the sea. For a few seconds it looked cloudy and we were only hoping that it doesn’t rain.

Business in the sea

It all began with a sighting of a Wilson’s Storm Petrel. We were really 90kms from the coast and had reached beyond the continental shelf. We were doing real deep sea birding. The sighting of the petrel brought some hope and all of us got excited again. Within a few minutes there was another sighting of the petrel. With these multiple sightings, I managed to see the white band above the tail. They are so fast in their flight that within a few seconds they have moved quite far from our sight. We had quite a few sightings of the Wilson’s Storm Petrel in the next 1hr, about 5 of them which was a great number. It allowed us to get a good look of the bird.

Sept 24th, 4pm
At this hour, we were busy observing the Wilson’s Storm Petrel. There was a lot of activity. Suddenly one of the birds which we saw didn’t have the white band above the tail. After observing it carefully, it was concluded that it was the Swinhoe’s Storm Petrel. Another new bird for us. We would have easily dismissed it as the Wilson’s Storm Petrel had we not noticed the absence of the white band. We also had sightings of the Shearwater, Skua and many sightings of the Wilson’s Storm Petrel.

Sept 24th, 5pm
We could start seeing the beautiful evening light. It was an wonderful experience by itself. The bird activity was quite high and most of us were running around from one end to the other end of the boat balancing ourselves with the camera and the binoculars. We had another sighting of the Swinhoe’s Storm Petrel and Flesh-footed Shearwater. Two minutes later we saw a large bird in flight which we initially assumed to be the Shearwater. But it wasn’t. The first thing all of us was to click pictures of the bird. After referring to all the field guides, there was a reason to celebrate. It was the Jouanin’s Petrel which has a thick beak and pointed tail. The bird is almost endemic to Arabian sea. In fact one should be able to identify this bird from Shearwater just from its flight pattern. We had about 8 more sightings of the bird in the next 1hr and it was amazing to see them in the golden evening light. The sun was setting down and the sea looked beautiful. There was a dead green turtle around which 3 Wilson’s Storm Petrel kept circling around.

Jouanin’s Petrel

Swinhoe’s Storm Petrel

Swinhoe’s Storm Petrel gliding through the calm sea

As it got darker, we decided to take a U-turn and head back so that we reach the shore back in time the next day. The sea was calm which also helped us stay calm. The agenda for the rest of the evening was to have dinner and anchor the boat for the night. It was already dark and sky was clear which also meant we could just look at the beautiful stars endlessly. I had never seen the sky so beautiful. It was like spreading out one of those photographs of the sky from NASA :P

Sept 24th, 6pm
The boatmen tied those led torch lights which continuously blinked to warn the other ships and boats about our presence. The dinner was really good – boiled rice with pickles. I just had dinner, unwrapped my sleeping bad and tried sleeping below those beams that run across. It was funny and weird because people used those beams to walk around. I was soon asleep after staring at the sky for a while. The boat was anchored at about 9pm and it was very quiet after the engine was shut down. I woke up suddenly at about 3am or so to the noise generated by the snoring men on the boat. It was like frogs croaking. The boat was quite stable but there is always little bit of wobbling. I went back to sleep again and woke up by 6am.

Sept 24th, 6am
It was such a beautiful experience to wake up in the middle of the sea. The sea was unbelievably calm. And the first thing that came to my mind was that I had survived a night in the deep sea. I have woken up at 3am but quickly went back to sleep again when I realised that I was in the middle of the sea. I woke up and sat for a while watching the calm sea. I didn’t even feel like clicking the moment, it was the moment to just sit and enjoy. We already had sightings of the Arctic Skua, Wilson’s Storm Petrel and Bridled Terns.

Sept 25th, 7am
I was brushing my teeth when Praveen called out asking us to have a look at the juvenile Sooty Tern, a bird which we have been missing. We saw a Little tern few minutes ago. It was just a brief sighting and was just passing by. Within a few minutes we were all ready for more birding. Bridled Terns and 2 Wilson’s Storm Petrels were seen too. Soon after them we had our first sighting of the Swinhoe’s Storm Petrel for the day. We saw 2 of them in total.

Sept 25th, 8am
In the next one hour, we had 2 more sightings of the Swinhoe’s Storm Petrel, 2 more sightings of the Wilson’s Storm Petrels and many more Bridled Terns.

Sept 26th, 9am
Again, this hour was quite interesting with sightings of Flesh-footed Shearwater. We saw about 3 of them separately starting at 9.40am. This was our first sighting of the bird for the day. We did see the usual suspects – Bridled Tern(6), Wilson’s Storm Petrel(3) and Swinhoe’s Storm Petrel(2). There was a sighting of the Sooty Tern but I missed it.

Sept 26th, 10am
Post 10am, there were more sightings of Flesh-footed Shearwater(9), Bridled Terns(9), Wilson’s Storm Petrel(3) and Crested Terns(2). We didn’t see any petrels but we did see the Jouanin’s Petrel.

Sept 26th, 11am
It was very sunny and most of us were exhausted. There wasn’t much activity but except Sooty Tern and Jouanin’s Petrel, it was the same birds sighted again. The boatmen were playing some tamil music and it only drove me to sleep in the hot sun.

We did see a lot of Sea Snakes, lot of gorgeous Jelly Fishes (some 5 different species), one Danied Egg fly female and Wandering Glider (Pantala) dragonflies. We also saw Dolphins on both days. I was only hoping to see a blue whale ;-)

Sea Snake

We were back in the shore by 3pm and must say that this pelagic trip was an experience by itself. The density of the birds seen varied with distance. Spending a night in the sea made a lot of difference because we were able to cover a longer distance than before. The calm sea helped us stay calm :-)

It had rained the previous day and Gubbalala lake looked beautiful. While walking along the lake with the primary purpose of watching birds, we kept looking for other forms of life too. Somewhere along the trail, we saw this butterfly. Yes, you heard it right – a butterfly which belongs to the family of Hesperioidea. Skippers are very different from the other types of butterflies. Their wings are never completely closed and their fly very fast. What you see in the photograph above is the typical resting position of the skipper. You can see that the wings are not completely closed. Their antennae look somewhat like golf sticks to me, they are bent at the tip. I saw this one and quickly tried clicking a few pics and then slowly moved closer to it. It seemed quite cool with the paparazzi around it. It brownish wings are beautiful and the eyes are really gorgeous. The water drops on the leaf completed the scene. After enjoying a lot of attention for a while, it moved to another leaf.

Ashwini and I were just heading back after spending a day at the Nameri Wildlife Sanctuary. It was getting dark and we had to cross the Jai Bhoreli river. As we were walking past the forest guard quarters, we saw a guard looking through the window. There was something cryptic in his expression. There was a dent in one of the grills which the other guards told us that it was caused by an elephant. I always remember this picture when I think of Nameri.

Finally, I completed my first full marathon on Sept 18th,2011. This was at the Kaveri Trail Marathon in Srirangapatna, Mysore along the cauvery canal. This is the third time I am participating in that marathon, the last two times being 10K and half marathon. So I have finally graduated to a full marathon.

I was quite nervous because I hadn’t really trained properly for a full marathon. The longest I had run while training was 30kms. I always found it difficult to push myself beyond 30kms. It wasn’t an easy task. On the race day, I just wanted to finish my first half (21.1kms) before the sun came out in the open and I managed to do that. I completed the first loop in 02:06:28hrs and I was impressed by myself but then again the next half wasn’t going to be easy. But the only way I could do it was to forget about the timing and just complete it at my own pace. It sort of worked. Dividing the rest of the distance into 5kms chunk (mentally) also helped. A part of it was covered walking too. The route was quite tough with stones, bullock carts etc since it was a regular village road. The scenery was beautiful with open fields, trees, marigold flowers in bloom which helps you forget about the difficulties. At one point, I did get a catch on my right leg but thankfully I didn’t have to stop running for it. The chart of the left shows my timing at each of the 10km stretches.

• Distance
  42.2KM
• Finishing Time
  5.34HRS
• Rank
  62

It took me 05:34:08hrs to complete 42.2kms. It isn’t a great timing at all but you get that runner’s high for completing it. The marathon was organised wonderfully but there was something which irritated me a lot. One would expect the runners to be quite a disciplined bunch. It is mostly the well-educated bunch who run for fitness and fun. But it is awful to see to a lot of runners just throwing paper cups around while running. To make things worse, most of the paper cups ended up in the canal. The reason for this is that runners hydrate themselves and run at the same time.. So they don’t really bother about dumping the cup into the bin. Our personal achievements matter more to us than the environment. Really awful.

Commelina forskalaei

Dodonaea viscosa

Cyanotis

Habenaria roxburghii

Freshwater Jellyfish

Persian Shearwater

Whattay life :-)

Bridled Tern