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The Vaishnodevi Experience 2023

My first trip to Vaishnodevi was unimpressive. Climbing was hard, and it only served to highlight how badly out of shape I was, while my in-laws managed to cope so much better. Further, I hadn’t quite realized that the cave experience wouldn’t be the same as I had imagined, since the original cave was only opened at certain times a year, and that we only entered a newly created tunnel, one far easier to access, and hence more manageable with the crowds that thronged the mountain shrine. The resulting experience at the shrine, for barely a fraction of a second, hardly compared to what I had expected / imagined / heard about. So, for me, Vaishnodevi was like any other temple, nothing to write home about, something that was reflected (though not explicitly mentioned) in the blog post I wrote then.
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Asian Koel

The call of the cuckoo or koel is one of the nicest to hear. The bird itself is not so nice. For one, it is a lazy bird, laying its eggs in another's nest, leaving the other one to care for it unknowingly. Also, the male looks just like a crow, which does nothing to improve its looks! The female looks more beautiful, a combination of brown and white which helps in camouflage. However, this also makes it harder to spot. I have seen koels in our colony, but never close, and certainly not close enough to get a decent photograph. 



The Nehru Park on Fateh Sagar Lake at Udaipur was a bird haven, even in the sweltering summer heat. Apart from the lapwings, which I have written about earlier, we also saw many other birds.... Among these were a pair of Asian Koels....

The female was the easiest to photograph, as she stayed in one place....









while the male foraged among the other trees, coming back every now and then...


While the rains had yet to set in, it looked like it was time for mating already, for this was not the only pair of birds we saw, busily engaged in courtship. There were more, so keep coming back!!
Other Bird Posts....
Other Posts about Asian Koels on my blog....

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Location: Fateh Sagar Lake, Udaipur, Rajasthan

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