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Today we have had our last day in Rajasthan starting out at the temple of Hanuman the monkey god. Needless to say it's a beautiful temple in the mountains full of monkeys. They come up and search you for food. We walked up the mountain in the early morning feeding them nuts and bananas.
Our next stop was Bharatpur wetlands and bird sanctuary. We were supposed to stay for about an hour and stayed four, having a fantastic guide and seeing so much. It's a 24 square kilometre park where local and migrating birds roost and nest. Painted stalks and great cormorants have nesting colonies which were amazing. You could see the babies in the nests, and a crested serpent eagle circled above them menacingly.
We say huge turtles sunbathing and fighting in the mud, antelope and deer.
As we had stayed late it was terrifying driving into Agra this evening. No one uses lights and although it was a dual carriage way people use it going in either direction on whichever side suits them. Animals and people cross constantly and stop where they like.
Tomorrow early start to see the Taj Mahal at sunrise. Still hot here, all the Indians have heard about the cold and keep worrying about the UK.
LPJ
Here's a list of all the birds ( and a couple of other things) we saw in the wetlands. Mostly for Paul W, as he couldn't believe we didn't know what we might see, Paul F, Tony and Mole too.
Hoopoe
Rufus tree pie
Bramley starling - orange head.
Grey night jar
Painted stalk
Pond heron
Kingfisher
Black neck stalk
black wing stilt
Crested serpent eagle
Purple heron
Indian
Moorhen
Snake bird or Darta
Red roof turtle
Spoon bill stalk
Great cormorant
Black headed ibis
Night heron
Saris crane/ indian crane
Pelican Gt white
- comments
Joaquin Feeling colder here with -3C than Stockholm with -18C. Mercedes doing her job as expected, not missing Sussi. Fire keeping warm the house and Elu suffering my presence. More updates for coming Xxx Joaquin Elu
Mary That's great you got your elephant ride in early in your trip, and possibly sending things home by trunk...... Love the instant postcards, by the way. Don't forget to do a few short movie clips as a sound track to your trip. Cheers Mary & Tony
Christine Wow it all looks and sounds amazing. It's funny seeing Joe wearing a tee shirt when its so cold here...! Thanks for Oscar's birthday wishes, i was supposed to go see him but it was too snowy, so am off tomorrow instead. Hope the Taj Mahal is everything it should be. Have fun x