Photo-meet at Village Vira

Grey Heron and Spoonbills

Another photo-meet of PCoG was decided to organise at Village Vira, Kachchh. In the way a small pond was found before Village Shinay and provided some good bird-watching opportunity and spotted (1) Grey Heron (2) Spoonbills (3) Blackwinged Stilts (4) White wagtail (5) Desert Wheatear.

Lunch at the Farmhouse 

After reaching Jogninar Temple we picked up our host Naranbhai of Vira who also assisted as the local guide. He took us to Temple of Harsiddha Ma of Village Vira and thereafter we reached to the farm of Bhikhabhai. There we had good photo shoots with birds and buffaloes. Birds we spotted at the farm were mainly consisting plenty of Cattle egrets and some lonely Paddy bird and Black winged stilt.
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Re-visit to pond Kidana and other ponds

Great White Pelicans at Kidana pond ©

Who missed the previous Kidana-pond meet wished to visit it again. Therefore, a full day program was organized covering other water-pools of Antarjal, Shinay, Sanghad and salt pans near Jogninar Temple in addition to pond of Kidana in a circular route.
At the beginning of our trip, around IFFCO-Udaynagar , we noticed various perching birds like Little green bee eater, Indian roller, Greater Coucal (Crow-Pheasant), partridge, kite etc.
Thereafter, we  spent nearly two hours of early morning at the pond of Kidana, and shot photographs and videos as well. As it was early hours (about 9 am onwards) the birds were settling at their positions to take morning sunbath. Ordinarily after a chilled night, birds warm up themselves  before getting involved in other activities.
After Kidana, we left for the lake at Shinay village. We had expected little or no activities at the lake as it was noon time, however we spotted a large flock of White Pelicans getting ready for taking off.
Thereafter, we moved to village Sanghad, where we visited a dam constructed some years back , by creating a barrier to natural water flow of a river(or some water stream). The area was peaceful and pleasant as it has not yet been affected by the Sunday-picnic-traffic.
After having lunch at Jogninar Temple we visited the salt-pans near to the temple in anticipation of finding Greater Flamingos. Disappointingly, what we did find were scatted birds. It took some time and some walking before we found a small group of flamingos, making the visit decently worthy.
While returning we visited small pond of Antarjal. Shockingly it was dried out even before the end of the winter, causing scarcity of water for coming hot summer.