Noggan Man - This week in Birdland 9th

This Week In Birdland

9th-14th March 2026

I decided to dedicate a bit of time to Mandrem Creek this week, as some of my usual favourites aren’t around anymore — particularly the blue-tailed bee-eaters, who have now started to migrate north for breeding. Like many, they come to Goa in the winter for the weather and the food. Luckily though, there were still a few treats to be had.

Scroll down to get to the photos & skip the babble

Monday morning was misty and humid. Gone are the cool drafts and breezes of the pre-sunrise hour, and night temperatures haven’t fallen below 25 degrees centigrade for a week or so now. As someone behind two sets of lenses, it’s often a foggy start for me at the moment. Though I’m not seeing anything new as such, I am getting to see and film some great images of the birds that favour the mangroves. Most of the shots on Monday suffered from poor light due to the mist, which is a bit of an Achilles’ heel for my particular camera. Nevertheless, I got some great footage and a few nice snaps of a white-breasted waterhen.

Tuesday saw better results, and I finally got some sharper images of the swallows getting their stock of mud pellets together, ready for some construction or repair, along with fantastic close-ups of a striated heron and white-bellied waterhen. Walking back along the dunes behind Surf Wala, I saw a fantastic chestnut-headed bee-eater and a wonderful female Indian robin.

Wednesday morning broke brightly and, just as I got my camera set up under the bridge to film the swallows, the repair workers came to do whatever needed to be done. I managed to get some nice shots just beforehand and, walking back along the creek, I heard some madly loud shrieks. These were coming from three black-rumped woodpeckers, two of whom were having a mid-air battle. I just managed to snap them while they were having a breather on the trunk of a coconut palm between rounds. I’ve never seen three together before and, as anyone knows with woodpeckers, they don’t wait for you to get your kit sorted!

Thursday, and another misty start made early morning shots (with my camera at least) a challenge. Near Surf Wala I got a curious bee-eater who looked like it had been up all night, and saw the Brahminy kite pair, still guarding the slope at the top of the dunes. Walking on, the bright pink inflorescences on a monkey pod/rain tree were impossible to miss. I’m wondering if the sunbirds will think the same. My favourites of the morning were a magnificent Indian cormorant in a casuarina tree and a wire-tailed swallow — on a wire. With that, we set off to Sagar Anand for a feed, where there was also not a lot showing other than a reliably great breakfast.

Friday proved to be a bit of a milestone and, unless I have miscalculated or counted some twice, I’ve now clocked up 80 different bird species for the Arambol Project. This was thanks to two great egrets in the trees above the creek and, after many missed calls, a stork-billed kingfisher.

Why should it matter? Well, for a few reasons, a couple of which I’ll share here. Firstly, and importantly, it just goes to reinforce how abundant and diverse the birdlife is on this little patch of largely ignored dunes and its surrounds. Secondly, and important to me and my current philosophy of birding, is that despite putting in the hours (probably over 150 hours of field time), I have never tried to see anything other than what was there. Somehow, that makes it all the more satisfying. I could of course go and chase a pigeon tomorrow and hit 81!

Saturday, and a quick once around the temple and the dunes proved fruitful, and not only for the koels feasting on the zunna berries. I got species 81 with a common myna and spotted sunbirds along with golden and black-hooded orioles. As I wandered home through the dunes I saw the familiar bobbing head of a spotted owlet, absent from my walks lately, poking out of a rotting coconut palm. Soon after, another flew in and perched on top. I think these are the same pair from a similar tree not so far away that have recently shifted. Noisy neighbours perhaps?

Ali Reeves