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The Asian Open-billed Stork Anastomus oscitans (sometimes referred to as simply the Asian Openbill) is a resident breeder around inland wetlands in tropical southern Asia from India and Sri Lanka east to Southeast Asia. These three birds were photographed at Vedanthangal Bird Sanctuary, southern India in December

Like all storks it flies with its neck outstretched [...]

When I was at Vedanthangal Bird Sanctuary in southern India a few weeks ago one of the species of waterbird I couldn’t have missed if I’d tried was the Indian Pond Heron Ardeola grayii. Known colloquially as the “Paddybird” this rather familiar and lovely little heron is found in almost any ‘wet’ habitat from small [...]

Vedanthangal (pronounced Ved-uhn-tangle) Bird Sanctuary is about 85km south-west of Chennai in Tamil Nadu, southern India (which sounds all sounds very exotic don’t you think?), and is centred around a 30ha ‘tank‘, an artificial lake used for crop irrigation, that is visited by tens of thousands of breeding waterbirds in late-winter.

It’s actually India’s [...]

March 2nd. Another overnight flight, and another dawn - this one in Chennai (or Madras as it was once called) on India’s south-west coast, the capital of Tamil Nadu, home to almost 8 million people, and the third Indian city I’ve visited this year already (the other two being Delhi and Mumbai). The two trips [...]

Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India
18 January 2006
 
I’ve not been to Chennai (or Madras as it used to be known) in Tamil Nadu, south-eastern India, for many years. Our trips here are very short with just one free day available, and that coming after a long flight that only gets into Chennai at some horrible time [...]