Postcard From The Himalayas

The Himalayas above Dharamasala, Himachal Pradesh, India (09/01/2012)

I have just returned from a rather fraught few weeks, travelling and birding in Northwest India. Unfortunately I was plagued by heavy snow in the Himalayas, which curtailed many of my plans as roads soon became impassable or were closed down. Despite the problems the snow caused it did make for some spectacular scenery and drove many birds down from the mountains into the lower valleys, making the birding very interesting. Once out of the mountains I thought I would be leaving the poor weather behind me, but I was in for a shock as heavy morning fogs and rain set about ruining my plans and making birding very difficult. Add to that a couple of bus breakdowns, train journeys which ended up arriving hours late and to cap it all being bitten by a stray dog and I was beginning to get the feeling that I was cursed! I had so much bad luck that I half expected the plane to crash on the way home so it was quite a relief to touch down at Heathrow in one piece!

On my first morning back, head still blurry from jet lag and lack of sleep, but feeling the need for some fresh air, we wandered over to College lake to try and see the Little Auk Alle alle that had been found there the previous afternoon. This was a really bizarre record and I was quite keen to see the bird as soon as possible as I knew that Alcids have a habit of going belly up when they turn up in land. Sadly we arrived too late. The poor little thing had pulled itself up onto the shore and had been promptly pecked to death by two Carrion Crows. A rescue bid had been made but to no avail, and all I got to see was the tiny dead bird in the hand. Quite sad really. To cheer myself up we stopped of at Startops Reservoir to try and find the long staying Snow Bunting that had been in residence since December. We soon found it feeding unobtrusively on the same stretch of stony shoreline that I had last seen the bird a month before. For second it felt as if I had not been away at all.