Jeaunsetalk

I spent yesterday morning, from first light until almost midday looking, completely unsuccessfully as it turned out, for the elusive Oriental Dwarf Kingfisher. This is a superb little bird which arrives here in Mumbai just before the Monsoon and proceeds to breed, disappearing north again at the end of the Monsoon. It’s a terrific little beastie as well, like a perfect miniature kingfisher but with more orange colouration than the common or garden variety.
The ODKL (for this is what the Indian birders habitually refer to it as) lives in deep mountainous jungle and this means that it is rarely seen. At this time of year however it is active rearing young and if a nest can be located then there is a good chance of seeing one. Monsoon, Deep Mountainous Jungle….. Hmmmmmm

We set off on foot from, Nagla, a small village at the base of a range of jungle clad mountains Just North of Mumbai island and proceeded to climb up along a steep, narrow and amazingly slippery path through thick and lush forest. Underfoot was a hard compacted surface made slick with mud and, just to make things a little more interesting, every now and then the path became rutted or sloped steeply to one side or another, just walking without slipping and falling took a huge amount of concentration. The temperature, due to the dense cloud cover was reasonable at 28C but the humidity was crippling and within a few hundred yards of beginning the climb we were all drenched in sweat and panting with exertion, after around an hour, we reached a spot where my friends had previously seen and indeed photographed the ODKL a few weeks previously. Standing still however bought a new irritant in the form of clouds of aggressive biting flies of several types. First there were the mossies, the least of our worries, then there were these small black and voracious midges, absolutely evil in their numbers and speed of attack. We were of course all plastered in DEET but it seemed to make absolutely no impression on them, I guess that the rivers of perspiration gushing from my pores soon washed it away anyway. Lastly there was an intriguing, huge and very loudly buzzing fly of a type I have never seen before. Yellow- orange and about an inch long ( BIG!) with a long and sharp forward facing proboscis these things liked to land on the lower half of the body and then proceed to bite through, well probably Kevlar by the looks of them. I’m very interested to find out what they were as they were completely new to me. I must say we did get a laugh out of it as one person after another did a little dance trying to avoid them.
Then it started to rain. We manfully said that we would give it another half an hour or so and we were convinced that we heard the high pitched ‘peee-peee’ that signified the ODKL was about but what with the rain, the flies and the deep gloom of the extraordinarily dense jungle we lasted about ten minutes before slipping and sliding back down the mountain, pausing only to slap ineffectually at the swarms of flies that seemed to surround each person. When we arrived back at the car we were drenched, muddy, baking hot, pouring sweat and covered in bites. Lovely. Jungles – Pah!