Birding Goa: The Heronry near Athani

Whilst we were going to the village of Badami in North Karnataka we were driving by lush green fields about 5-10 kilometers from Athani I saw thousands of heronary birds about 300 meters from the roadside and a couple of Grey Herons standing in the foot-deep water. We did not stop because we had to reach Badami as quickly as possible.So, we decided to stop at that spot on the way back. While coming back we stopped at that place and saw that all those egret like birds in the distance were all Painted Storks. Not 20-30, but about 100. And those couple of grey herons which I saw were not even 1/100th of the amount of them I saw today.

Painted Storks and Grey Heron

Then I saw that out of those 100 Grey Herons most of them had made nests. Some were sitting on it, maybe to incubate the eggs, some were feeding their and some of the chicks had already fledged and were already foraging on their own.

Roosting Grey Herons

Grey Herons

There were many other waders too. There were Spot-billed Ducks,a lone Chestnut or Cinnamon Bittern, Cattle, Intermediate and Little Egrets, Pond Herons, Purple Heron, Black-Crowned Night Heron, Black-Tailed Godwits, Common Green Shank, Little-Ringed Plover, White-Throated, Common and Pied Kingfishers, Lesser-Whistling Ducks, Little and Indian Cormorants, Purple Swamphen, White-Breasted Waterhen, Red-Wattled Lapwing, Eurasian Coot, Oriental White Ibis, Black-Winged Stilt and Common Moorhens.