January 5, 2024

Friday, 11:30 PM

A homestay in Nelliyampathy,

District Palakkad, Kerala, India

 The morning wasn’t ideal today, for we got up to darkness and lots and lots of insects because it had rained all night and our inverter had died down. So when we got up, we had insects all over the place and we had to get ready pretty much in complete darkness. Even the night was not very comfortable because of humid surroundings and buzzing insects. 

However, the rest of the day went pretty well because we did find the hornbills I wanted to shoot in Nelliyampathy, so the decision to move from Parambikulam to Nelliyampathy did pay off. We had a guide with us, Mahesh, who found us the right place for us to click some wonderful hornbills. I got a lot of good pictures of this one hornbill that kept bringing fruits to his mate sealed inside the nest. The males do bring flesh and insects, too, but that is when the chicks are out and they need protein to grow. Since the chicks were not yet out, he kept bringing fruits for the female. After a while it became repetitive because he just kept bringing more and more fruits to feed the female. But the pictures turned out well. After a while, we left the place and went around the town to look for other interesting things to shoot. But we did not find much to shoot at this other place, so we returned to the hornbills. And this one was right there just the same, doing the same thing — flying fruity goodies to the female. So we shot the same some more, and returned as the evening fell and darkness made good pictures impossible. Besides, we already had enough good pictures.