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The Elephanta Caves

The Elephanta Caves , located on Elephanta Island, or Gharapuri, about 11 Km off the coast of the Gateway of India, Mumbai, are a UNESCO World Heritage Site. A visit to these caves, excavated probably in the 6 th century CE, is awe-inspiring, and also thought-provoking. Over the years, I have visited the caves a number of times, and also attended a number of talks by experts in the fields of art, history and archaeology on the caves. Together, they help me understand these caves, their art, and the people they were created for, just a little bit better. Every new visit, every new talk, every new article I read about the caves, fleshes out the image of what the island and the caves would have been like, at their peak. I last wrote about the caves on this blog, in 2011, almost exactly 11 years ago. Since then, my understanding of the caves has, I would like to think, marginally improved. Hence this attempt to write a new and updated post, trying to bring to life, the caves of Elephan
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White Browed Wagtail

Udaipur, being a city of lakes, naturally attracts a lot of birds. However, considering that we were visiting the city in peak summer, I had little hope of seeing any birds. We might have missed the rarer ones, but there was no dearth of birds, even in the scorching summer heat, thanks to all the water in the lakes! Here is the first in the series of birds we saw on our summer vacation to Mount Abu and Udaipur.....



The White Browed Wagtail.....

The Fateh Sagar Lake at Udaipur had groups of them all over the place, though we couldn't get nearer....


At the Nakki Lake at Mount Abu, there were a couple we managed to approach without scaring them away!





Thanks to the close look we managed, we now know how to distinguish between the White Browed Wagtail and the Oriental Magpie Robin! But more about that in another post!!

Did you know that the zoological name for this bird is Motacilla Maderasapatensis - and that the name comes from the city of Madras? 


More Bird-related posts from my blog...
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Location: Rajasthan, India

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