Simon and Karen Spavin: 2008

Sunday, December 28, 2008

Waxwings

68 waxwings at Sainsbury's in Hessle. A spectacular sight.

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

In November we all went to Goa for 2 weeks. Simon and I to go birding and our kids, Lucy and Tom to have a 2 week beach holiday. We stayed at the Marinha Dourada in Arpora, a lovely hotel, far better than any others we saw. We used the guiding services of Raymond who was excellent. He knew all the sites. We would recommend him or Lloyd Fernandez, both can be found outside the Biera Mar. We birded Baga Hill and Arpora Wood daily ourselves with excellent results. It is a lot more rewarding finding your own birds. We were in the woods every morning before dawn waiting for the monkeys to wake up. Magical times. Raymond took us to Carambolin Lake, Morjim Beach, Divar Island and Siolim plus many other sites along the way.

In the second week we went to Backwoods for 4 days. The birding here was very good but was spoilt by an American chap in our group. He put 'loud and stupid' on a totally new level. His idea of birding was to walk towards the bird, flushing it so no-one else saw it. He would have had his head taken off on the Lincolnshire coast. We did see many new birds here and the jungle was a total contrast to the previous week.

We had a total of 250 species.

Good places to eat included East Meets West and All Spice. Both serve absolutely fantastic food. It was a totally different holiday which I loved. The begging and bartering being part of it and I loved it.

Locals

Pics show locals going to work in the fields, a paddy field being worked and Lucy with one of her dogs which she adopted next to the hotel. We used to steel hard boiled eggs and toast every breakfast and then at night bring them naans for their supper. Last photo shows us birding with Dorte and his wife from Denmark being led by Leio, our Backwoods guide.