My longest road journey & the end of summer holidays

Within a couple of days of reaching back from Camp Himalayan, we were off to the longest road journey i've taken till now.

4.30 am...... New Delhi to Udaipur. We reach Udaipur at 3.30 pm. Swim in the pool & chill & night stay in Udaipur

next day.....

Leave Udaipur at 9am for Ahmedabad.

Break for lunch for a sumptuous guju thaali & meeting vinay kaka& charul maasi.

Leave Ahmedabad at 5 pm

Destination for night stay is in my old house in Dahanu.

We reach at 1 am

We crash to sleep.

2nd day

Wake up in the morning, a ride on our 'ole scooter, check out the stuff at the good 'ole Agni Bakery, meet my 'ole friend Pehzaan & a quick hello to Brian Kaka & Farida aunty......

10 am Dahanu to Bombay.....we reach for lunch in Bombay, which is our destination.

A total of almost 2,500 kms on road, & in a space of 5 days we weaved through Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat & Maharashtra & surprisingly it was not stressful at all. ( Yes, except for the Traffic cops at Ahmedabad city who kept extorting bribes out of us like a mafia gang)

I spend the rest of of my summer holidays with my cousins in Bombay. Watched movies, football matches, played, laughed, cried, fought, enjoyed, had kulfis, ice creams, pav bhaaji, bhel puri's, paani puri's, doughnuts, enjoyed the company of my aunts & uncles & my maternal grand mother, i saw & received the first rains, visited my farm near Pune .........

& now i am back to the grind.

Time & days seemed to have moved fast......

Lots of school work to complete before it re opens on the 28th.

Wish me luck........

Back from Camp Himalayan...... wth stories of the Brown Dipper & the Crested Bunting

Three of us took our trip up to the Shoja valley by bus, after an overnight journey, a jeep was waiting to take us to the Camp Himalayan.

We had a great time playing with the ever green Badshah & getting thrown into the ice cold waters of Thirtan river....

One day morning we were just fooling around the river, when suddenly i spotted the Brown Dipper....... a lifer for me

Had good sightings of Verditer flycatchers

Here are some of the other birds we saw like the Himalayan Griffon, actually up close eating a carcass, the Streaked whistling Thrush, Rock Buntings, Rufous Naped Tit, Himalayan Treepies, Blue whistling Thrush among others.

The Green backed Tits looked stunning in their colours

The snow peaked mountains were sometimes visible on a clear day, though there was torrential rains also.

Finally it was time to leave & bid good bye..... Due to many reasons we did not do much trekking this time, once we went up to Jalori pass, luckily we came back in the night, it hail stormed heavily in the night. But yet again a great stay & a lovely time at Camp Himalayan

.

As we started our long drive back

yet another lifer for me a Crested Bunting was sitting on the wires....... yippie

adios,

will be back again !!

off to Camp Himalayan yet again...........

Welcoming the holidays

escaping from the sweltering heat

welcoming my cousin brothers

three of us

just three of us

are off......

yet again

to Camp Himalayan

this will be my third visit in as many years

looking forward to the treks up Jalori pass, to see the Himalayan griffons up close & up into the Great Himalayan National Park, to all the exciting river crossings & for the general peace & quiet which the mountains offer.

Will i get to see the Western Tragopan, or the Snow Leopard.........

Even otherwise 'am sure once again my visit to Camp Himalayan will be memorable !!

See you guys on the other side.....

Walk like an Egyptian........ & a Thanx giving day

Every person is unique

You may never be a king

But no matter how far

Just reach for your star,

Dreams have ways of coming true

You may be astonished at the things you can do

Whatever others say

may you make it

come true someday......

Another year has chugged past

At this years annual day, with immense help from Kirti didi we performed a play "Walk like an Egyptian". We rehearsed the play for a week, it was fun........

Now we have a weeks break........ i get a chance to go to Bombay to be with my folks.

Till then.....

adios !!

In Orchha, with the Long billed Vultures

Orchha is a town in Tikamgarh district of Madhya Pradesh state, India. The town was the seat of an eponymous former princely state of central India, in the Bundelkhand region. Orchha lies on the Betwa River, 15 km. from Jhansi in Uttar Pradesh.

Mom has been there before & had seen the Long billed Vultures, so during the Holi break we took off to Orchha & i could not wait to see them.

We went by the Bhopal Shatabdi train and reached Orchha by 1:00 in the afternoon. After a sumptous lunch we went to our rooms. The balcony of our rooms looked out upon the river and i couldn't resist the temptation to take a little walk outside. I saw lots of bee-eaters and also a swallow sitting on the wires.

In the evening we had a little swim in the pool there, a very nice dinner and a good night's sleep.

The next morning was finally what i was waiting for, to go to the palace and see the vultures.

At first, I thought there would be a few vultures but by the time i reached the palace it felt as if there were a million of them. Every little ruin around, had at least one vulture sitting on top.

This was seriously vulture paradise. We came to this ruin that was like a courtyard with a tower on each side. As we approached it we saw a vulture on top of one of the towers and i got an amazing view of the bird. We then went to the other side to only find ANOTHER vulture actually sitting on its nest.

But guess what !! That wasn't it, there were two more vultures sitting on that same ruin. This was truly awesome.

I spent my afternoon sitting and taking pics & watching birds in and around the river & in the evening we went down to the river. Well, that is what we did for the next two days, just hanging out around the river, going to Orchha Nature Reserve & also swimming a lot in the pool, thanks to maasi, i learnt how to do the breast stroke

The Betwa river was lovely. We spent a lot of time along the banks, watching the river, the birds, the moon rise etc

Here is the list of some of the birds we saw

Long Billed Vultures…. Lots of them

Egyptian Vultures

Red Headed Vulture

Booted Eagle

Crested Serpent Eagle was always near by

Shikras

Common Kestrel (Female)

Green Bee eater active as ever & catching bees in flight

Cormorants fishing

Black headed Gulls & Swifts

Red Wattled Lapwings with chicks

Olive Backed Pipits

Rufous Tailed Larks

Tailor birds

Three different types of Tits

Blue Rock Thrush

Grey backed Shrikes, though never got it in the classic pose of sitting with its meal nailed in to a tree

Citrine Wagtail

Wagtail

Prinias

Grey Breasted Prinia

Chestnut Shouldered Petronia

A different type of Babbler

Lots of Sunbirds

Grey Hornbills

Pea hens & fowls

Flower peckers

Woolly necked Storks

Night Herons

Egrets

Spotted Owlets on a moon lit night !!

Finally as always all good things in life have to come to an end, so reluctantly we all headed back & me back to school !!

In Landour.......... with the Mountain Hawk Eagle

During the Dushera break we had gone to Landour. I liked the place, the small streets, the house where we stayed, which was infact overlooking a valley, the wooded areas were much less, so the walks were quite restricted, also Rhesus Macaques did sometimes look very aggressive, we tried to avoid eye contact, but also had to be careful at the same time, also the weather which suddenly changes from sunny, to cloudy & rainy & vice versa.

It was challenging to identify the Raptors. They just seem to arrive so suddenly & also disappear also equally fast. Of course the high light was to see the Mountain Hawk Eagle sitting in a tree in just 10ft in front of us. We were also lucky to see a pair of Black eagles in a very playful mood

And also the flying skills of the Eurasian Sparrow Hawk was just awesome & how she took on the crows which were hassling her.

The birds we saw & were able to identify are :

Mountain Hawk Eagle

Black Eagle

Eurasian Sparrow Hawk

Himalayan Griffon

Verditer Fly Catchers

Ultra Marine Fly Catchers

Dark sided Fly Catchers

Brown fronted Wood Pecker

Brown Bull Finch

Grey Winged Black Bird

Bar Tailed Tree Creeper

Green Backed Tit

Black Lored Tit

Whiskered Yuhina

White Throated Laughing Thrush

Striated Laughing Thrush

Scarlet Minivets

Holidays have come to an end......

I went to Bombay for 3 weeks and really enjoyed my time with my cousins and relatives. I played a lot of cricket, football and games I went out to a lot of malls, restaurants and to Nehru Science Centre, I watched a lot of movies like Dil Chahta Hai, Dostana, Home Alone etc and just had fun with all my relatives and a very special Labrador called Mischief.

The i came back to Delhi, reluctantly......... to do home work before school reopens. Plus the heat & power cuts were quite too much, school reopening got delayed for a few days because of all this, plus i got a few more days to do home work.

Now, in just a couple of days the holidays will come to an end....... sadly.

I actually don't know, I have a strange feeling....
I am sad because i will not be free anymore but i am kind of looking forward to meeting my friends.
When one has a long holiday and one is not travelling & one kind of just sit around and try to finish homework at home and that's pretty boring. Even though i have been cycling and playing a lot of cricket and football with my friends in the colony.

So when i think of it, its kind of more fun chatting with my friends, playing with friends at school(even though one has to study also !!), than sitting at home and studying the whole time.

So infact i am kind of looking forward for school.