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Odisha Part 6: The Yogini Temple of Hirapur

I fell in love with this temple the first time I set eyes on it. Back in 2017 , I had been excited to see yet another Yogini temple, when I visited Puri. The resort I was staying at (and writing for), had arranged for a car and driver to take me around. The driver was happy to take me to most of the places I wanted to go, but when it came to Hirapur, he was appalled. He knew of the temple, but had never been there. It was a tantric temple, one not visited by women, and certainly not women travelling alone. He tried to convince me not to go, but my stubbornness and persistence paid off, and he reluctantly agreed when I told him that if he didn’t take me, I would find another driver who would. All along the way, he kept going on about the sinister things that happened at the temple, the tantric rituals that were performed at night…. An Odisha brahmin who took his religious duties very seriously, to the extent of stopping the car to perform the sandhyavandam when he deemed it time, he...
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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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