Saturday, December 15, 2018 - At 6:30PM Cal took a boat for sunrise and shots of birds on the water.

Once on the water the camera which was sitting in the air-conditioned room all night immediately fogged up in the humid morning air. It was 15 minutes before I could take a picture without worrying about the lens.

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This is the narrow canal we navigated
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A kingfisher enjoys breakfast
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Fishing boat
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The canal we were exploring
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A bike propped against a tree on the dike
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Water lilies in the canal
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Sunrise through the palm trees
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A yellow kingfisher - with cute little red feet
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A blue kingfisher
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One of the water taxis ferrying people from one side to the other
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A striated heron looking over the marsh
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Cal docking after his early morning canal trip.
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Back on the houseboat we traveled up river and spotted a cluster of Indian flying foxes - or fruit bats. They are huge - 3 to 4 pounds.
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This kingfisher was sitting very still when I started to press the shutter - and the result was a diving bird.
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A kingfisher on a palm frond
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A cormorant sunning feathers and letting out a cry
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Palm trees on the river bank

7:30AM we have breakfast, pack and boat back to the dock. We leave for Munar.
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Double-crested Cormorant
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A fisherman using a bow and arrow to spear fish. He shot the bow while we went by, but we did not see if he pulled anything up.
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A nun walking on the river shore....
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... toward this church
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A bee-eater singing
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These men are fertilizing the rice field by hand
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A spilt tail Black drongo.
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Back on the road as we travel into the mountains to the east.

These are ducks are part of a duck farm.
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Pala Church Tower - built by the British - maybe?
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Many rubber tree farms with the cuts to tab into the sap for rubber - the plastic is to protect the sap from the rain.
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We saw two waterfalls on our climb up the mountain.

Cheeyappara Waterfalls has seven different drops
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Valara Waterfall on the Deviyar river
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A man making containers from bamboo reeds
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We arrive in the tea-growing region - and it is planted everywhere. Here workers are picking the tea leaves - the dark area is the area of tea which has been harvested and the lighter color is tea to be harvested.
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A road cuts through the tea fields
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We stop to hike Eravikulam National Park. As we climb the mountain, it looks more like a jungle.
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A tea field from high up on the mountain
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Anamudi mountain - the highest mountain in South India. We did not climb to the top but we were pretty high.
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Virginia Ann spotted this Red-whiskered bulbul.
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An old electric/telephone line reclaimed by the jungle
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The park is known for the Nilgiri ibex - we looked and looked but could not see any herds of the ibex. So, we began asking every park ranger we saw to point us to the location of the animal. We learned that they typically come out in the morning. Dejected we headed down the mountain. A Park Ranger ran up to us and said he saw one of the elusive animals. We rushed back up the trail with him and in the brush was an ibex - unfortunately well hidden behind the toilets.
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On the way down the mountain another picture of the tea plantations.


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