Kerala Bird Watching Tour

Past the customs hall at Cochin International Airport, our Kochi representative greets you by name, and a private air-conditioned car then covers the 45 km or so to Fort Kochi in roughly ninety minutes. Many overseas flights touch down well before dawn, so the morning carries no fixed plans beyond sleep and a late breakfast. Hotels normally hand over rooms in the early afternoon; guests landing at 3 am often pay for the previous night so a bed is ready on arrival. In the welcome folder you will find the day plan, a site-by-site list of likely species and the contact numbers for your guides.

Once the afternoon heat drops, a short warm-up session gets your eyes tuned to Kerala birds without any long drive. Fort Kochi occupies a narrow spit squeezed between open sea and backwater channels, and the mudflats, coconut groves and rain trees near the waterfront are busy with Brahminy kites, house crows, Asian koels and white-throated kingfishers. An easy add-on is Mangalavanam, a small mangrove reserve in the city near the High Court, which shelters night herons and cormorants and is often called the green lung of Kochi. Viewing is from the edge only, and an hour is plenty.

Sunset is the time to stroll the beach road past the cantilevered Chinese fishing nets, where gulls and terns hang over the crews hoping for scraps, and egrets stalk the shallows. Pack your binoculars into your day bag tonight and check the batteries on your camera, because tomorrow's birding starts soon after first light. Dinner can be a simple plate of appam and stew at a local café or grilled fish at a waterfront restaurant. Your guide for Thattekad will call in the evening to confirm the plan and ask which species you most want to see. Overnight in Kochi.

After an early breakfast you leave Kochi behind and head north-east into the foothills, reaching Thattekad well before lunch. The village sits on the Periyar River, Kerala's longest, where low hills covered in evergreen and semi-evergreen forest meet rubber, teak and coconut smallholdings. That mix of habitats explains why the ornithologist Salim Ali rated this spot so highly during his survey of the old Travancore and Cochin states in the 1930s. The area became the Salim Ali Bird Sanctuary in 1983, and today it covers about 25 square kilometers between two arms of the river.

You check in to a simple but comfortable forest-edge homestay or riverside lodge, the kind of place where Malabar parakeets and bronzed drongos can turn up on the garden fence. Lunch is home-style Kerala cooking, and a siesta before the afternoon walk is strongly advised. Your birding guide here grew up in the area, and local guides of this kind know where individual birds have roosted for weeks. That knowledge, rather than luck, is what makes Thattekad productive. Expect a pace of slow walking, long pauses and plenty of time to study a bird properly instead of ticking it and moving on.

Around 3:30 pm you set out on foot along plantation tracks and forest edges near the sanctuary. Typical afternoon birds include the white-bellied treepie, the Malabar grey hornbill, the crimson-backed sunbird, the flame-throated bulbul and several woodpeckers, with black bazas and crested serpent eagles often circling over the canopy. As the light fades you wait near a clearing for owls and nightjars to start calling, and your guide will explain why spotlights and playback calls are avoided here. Wear long trousers and closed shoes, and carry insect repellent. Overnight in Thattekad.

Coffee is ready at about 6 am, and by first light you are walking quietly into the sanctuary with your guide and a forest department staff member. Dawn is when the forest is noisiest, and the first hour often brings the Malabar trogon, the Indian scimitar babbler, the dark-fronted babbler and, in winter, the Indian pitta flicking leaves on the ground. Top of almost every wish list is the Sri Lanka frogmouth: by day it sits motionless on a low perch, feathers fluffed, and passes for a clump of dead leaves. Pairs tend to use the same dense thickets for long periods, so the chances of seeing one with a seasoned local guide are good, though nothing is certain.

Breakfast is back at the lodge at around 9:30 am, followed by a midday pause while birds go quiet in the heat. Use the time to go through your photos, update your list or sit by the river with a telescope, where ospreys, grey-headed fish eagles and stork-billed kingfishers sometimes patrol the water. A short drive brings you to Bhoothathankettu, a dam a few kilometers upstream where a broad stretch of the Periyar meets forested hills. Legend says demons built the original rock barrier here overnight, and the reservoir edge is a good place to scan for darters, cormorants and river terns.

The afternoon session targets different habitats, usually the drier scrub and rocky hillsides around the sanctuary edge, where a roosting mottled wood owl, a brown wood owl or even the scarce Sri Lanka bay owl may be tracked down with a little help from the guide. Heart-spotted woodpeckers, the vernal hanging parrot and the rufous babbler, another Western Ghats endemic, are also regular here. Remember that staying on the path and keeping voices low is part of the deal inside the sanctuary, and no drones are allowed. A relaxed dinner and a check of the day's list close the evening. Overnight in Thattekad.

One more early walk near the lodge gives you a final chance for anything missed, perhaps the Malabar barbet, the orange minivet or the blue-bearded bee-eater. After breakfast you load the car and drive east into the High Ranges via Neriamangalam, where the road crosses the Periyar on an old stone bridge built in the 1930s. From here the route climbs steadily through cardamom and pepper gardens, patches of forest and a string of waterfalls that run hardest in the months after the rains. Your driver will stop wherever there is room to pull over safely, since the ghat road can turn up raptors and hill birds.

Altitude changes the bird list quickly. Below about 1,000 meters you are still among lowland species, but as the car passes Adimali and the air cools, you start seeing grey-headed canary-flycatchers, Indian blackbirds and the yellow-browed bulbul, and black eagles sometimes sail just above the treetops. Lunch is at a roadside restaurant on the way, a good chance to try a Kerala-style meals plate with rice and several vegetable side dishes. By early afternoon you pull into Munnar, some 1,600 meters up, where your room sits at a tea estate resort facing rows of clipped bushes on every slope.

Your Munnar birding guide meets you in the late afternoon for a short walk along tea estate roads and small patches of shola, the stunted evergreen forest that survives in hollows and stream valleys at these heights. Look for the Nilgiri flycatcher, an indigo-plumaged endemic of these southern hills, and listen for the loud, rich song of the Malabar whistling thrush near streams. Evenings at this altitude can be cold between December and February, so bring a fleece and a light rain jacket. Dinner is at the resort, and the guide will fix tomorrow's early start. Overnight in Munnar.

A packed breakfast goes with you as you drive about 30 minutes to the entry point of Eravikulam National Park, timing your arrival for the first visitor slot. Cars are left at the checkpoint, where forest department buses shuttle everyone up to the Rajamala tourist zone, the only part of the park open to the public. The rest of the park, around 97 square kilometers of rolling grassland and shola, is strictly protected and includes Anamudi, the tallest peak in peninsular India at close to 2,700 meters. Tickets are sold online in advance, and the park closes for a couple of months each year, roughly February to March, while the Nilgiri tahr give birth.

Most visitors come for the Nilgiri tahr, a stocky mountain goat endemic to the Western Ghats, and the herd at Rajamala has grown so accustomed to visitors that animals often feed beside the path. Birders have other reasons to be on the slope early. The open grassland is home to the Nilgiri pipit, a small streaked bird restricted to the highest hills of Kerala and Tamil Nadu, and the broad-tailed grassbird sings from the tops of tall grass clumps. Along the walled path you may also see the Kerala laughingthrush, known locally for its noisy group calls, and Nilgiri wood pigeons dropping down to fruiting trees near the edge.

Following lunch, the guide leads you to another patch of shola outside the park, often along the road toward Top Station or near one of the tea estate streams, depending on recent reports. These dark, mossy forests are home to the white-bellied sholakili, also called the white-bellied shortwing, a shy bird that keeps close to the ground, and the black-and-orange flycatcher, another endemic. Patience and silence matter more than distance here, so the walk stays short. Back in town, you might stop at a spice shop for cardamom or local tea. Overnight in Munnar.

Before leaving Munnar there is time for a last half hour with the telescope from the resort garden, where Indian white-eyes, scarlet minivets and hill swallows are regular. You then drive south through the Cardamom Hills, passing tea estates near Devikulam, the small market town of Poopara, and long stretches of cardamom planted under a high canopy of native trees. The road winds a lot and the drive takes about three and a half hours with stops. In clear weather you look down from the edge of the ghats toward the hazy Tamil Nadu lowlands, a reminder that Kerala's eastern border runs along these ridges.

Thekkady, the town on the edge of Periyar Tiger Reserve, sits at around 900 meters, so the air is mild rather than cool. Home for two nights is a resort whose rear fence touches the forest, and after lunch the early afternoon is yours. The hotel gardens in this area can be surprisingly rewarding, because many of them back directly onto forest. Watch for the Malabar giant squirrel, a big two-toned rodent that leaps noisily between branches, as well as Nilgiri langurs. Among the birds, the Malabar starling, the golden-fronted leafbird and the brown-cheeked fulvetta are often seen near flowering trees.

In the late afternoon your local birding guide walks you through a small spice farm run by one family on the edge of town, where pepper vines climb silver oak and jackfruit trees and cardamom grows in the damp shade. Plantations like this hold a mix of forest and garden birds, from the Indian golden oriole and the black-hooded oriole to the Malabar barbet and, with some luck, the Malabar grey hornbill feeding on fruit. The guide also explains how spices are harvested and dried, which makes this an easy outing for non-birding partners too. Dinner is at the resort. Overnight in Thekkady.

The forest department's guided nature walk inside Periyar Tiger Reserve starts early, usually around 7 am, and lasts two to three hours. Groups are small and led by trained local guides from the eco-development committees, many of them from families that once depended on the forest in other ways. In damp weather the guides lend canvas leech socks, and you should wear neutral colors and leave anything in plastic at the hotel. The trail passes through moist deciduous and evergreen forest and along the edges of grassy clearings, with chances of the great hornbill, the Wynaad laughingthrush and the heart-spotted woodpecker, along with fresh signs of elephant and gaur.

Breakfast waits at the hotel, and late morning brings a boat trip on Periyar Lake, a reservoir that has filled this valley since the British-era Mullaperiyar Dam was finished in the 1890s. The forest department runs the boats on a fixed timetable and seats are limited, so we reserve as soon as the counter or portal allows. Drowned tree trunks rising from the water serve as perches for little cormorants, Oriental darters, grey herons and pied and white-throated kingfishers. Herds of elephant, gaur and sambar sometimes come to the shore, though large mammals are never guaranteed, and tigers are very rarely seen from the boat.

The afternoon is free. Many birders like to return to the edge of the reserve with their guide for a slow walk along the boundary road, where flowerpeckers, sunbirds and Indian swiftlets are common and raptors such as the rufous-bellied eagle are occasionally seen. Non-birders can visit the small town for spices, tea and handicrafts, or book an optional Kalaripayattu martial arts show in the evening. Jeep rides and elephant rides offered privately around town are not part of this tour, and we recommend skipping animal rides altogether. Check your list against the day's sightings over dinner. Overnight in Thekkady.

After breakfast you drive down from the hills, leaving the cardamom country behind at Kumily and descending through the rubber estates of Mundakayam and Kanjirappally toward the low-lying wetlands around the lake. The temperature rises steadily as you go, and coconut palms and paddy fields replace forest. Along the road, keep an eye on the wires and fence posts for perched kites, rollers flashing turquoise wings and small parties of bee-eaters. Around midday you arrive in Kumarakom, a village spread along the east side of Vembanad Lake, where a waterfront resort with private canals and lawns is your last base.

Vembanad is the largest lake in Kerala and the core of a Ramsar wetland that stretches over much of the Kuttanad region. Its edges are a mosaic of paddy fields lying below sea level, coconut-lined bunds, reed beds and small islands, which together attract huge numbers of waterbirds. In winter, migrants such as garganey, northern pintail and wood sandpipers join resident lesser whistling ducks, purple swamphens and bronze-winged jacanas. Your resort garden is likely to be busy with white-breasted waterhens, common kingfishers and cattle egrets following the gardeners as they cut grass.

At around 4 pm you step into a small wooden canoe with a village boatman, paddled by hand rather than powered, through the narrow canals that lead off the lake. Being low and quiet on the water lets you get much closer to birds than a motorboat would, and the late light is ideal for photographs of purple herons, pond herons and little cormorants drying their wings. You also pass village houses, small churches and ferry points where people wait for the water bus. Back at the resort, the lake turns orange and then dark as fruit bats leave their roosts. Overnight in Kumarakom.

Your last birding session starts at first light in Kumarakom Bird Sanctuary, about 14 acres of mangrove, bamboo and old trees along the lake shore beside the resort strip. A raised path loops through the site, and the early hour is when herons and egrets leave their roosts and Indian darters and cormorants head out to fish. Black-crowned night herons, purple herons and Asian openbills are often present, and the sanctuary is also known for its nesting colonies during and after the monsoon. Your guide will help you sort out the last few species, and many birders end the tour with a final tally well over 150.

After a late breakfast and check-out, your driver heads north on the road to Cochin International Airport, normally a run of about 150 minutes. We set the leaving time from your flight details, keeping a full three hours in hand for international check-in. For a late-night flight, a day room can be booked near the airport or an extra night in Kumarakom at additional cost. Our duty manager keeps checking with the driver until you have passed the terminal entry check, and we are happy to send you a full species list from your guides for your records. Safe travels home.