Birding in Masinagudi

I was in Masinagudi a few days ago and went on a birding trip with Atul, the manager of Club Mahindra Zest property - Casa Deep Woods. My first visit to Casa was almost a decade ago, when it was not a Club Mahindra property .Incidentally it was my first ever trip to Masinagudi. It was sheer serendipity as we drove towards Mudhumalai forest after being told that we had no accommodation in Bandipur. The property was very new and Masinagudi was still very much not a tourist destination. I have visited Masinagudi several times, but this trip was sheer nostalgia.

And what a birding haven it turned out to be -the iora, the sunbird, the white eye, the warbler, the flycatchers, the thrushes - we sighted almost 50 species of birds in just one session and the best sightings were that of the pitta and the paradise flycatcher .While the pitta was hanging around for more than half an hour, walking around the dry stream , barely a few feet from me and at eye level, the paradise fly catchers were rather elusive. An entire family was high up in the leaves , right above us and we watched them fly with our binoculars.

The pitta chased the orange headed ground thrush that landed finally up in the branches of the trees.

My favourite of course was the poser tickell's blue flycatcher. For more birds and photographs, do see my album on my travel page on Facebook. For the entire story, please read here