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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.

Red Wattled Lapwings

We have seen Red Wattled Lapwings in Mumbai, but got a really close look at them while at Mount Abu and Udaipur. Though it was summer, there was plenty of water, and these birds were prominently visible near every water body we visited.


A pair of lapwings at Nakki Lake, Mount Abu....


We saw these birds when we went boating, and couldn't get any closer.....




And then at Udaipur, they were everywhere!

Nehru Park, on an island in the Fateh Sagar Lake, was a bird haven - we saw many birds and lost count of time photographing them. There were plenty of lapwings there.....


Some of them seemed to be nesting... we saw many like these sitting down at the same spot, and wondered if it was a nest.....




We even saw one bird sit down in the middle of the path!



In the same garden, some of the lapwings seemed unafraid of us, and allowed us to come close, giving me some wonderful photos!







After all those male and female lapwings, it was time for the young ones! We saw these chicks at the Udaipur zoo. No, they weren't in the enclosures, but were walking around freely, which only made the experience more memorable!




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