Feels great to be back home though I am dealing with a flooded bathroom. Our friend went to have a shower at 5.30am, before leaving to take the flight to Mumbai….and the bathroom, in true Murphy style, developed a huge leak from the pipes…. AND the control valve, which would shut off the water to the bathroom, is also broken) and a mass of contusions and bruises from three falls in Kodaikanal (alas, I wish they were waterfalls, but they are my-body falls to the pavement or road!)

Looking at my friends’ list in between the cooking and the firefighting, er, waterfighting,…. and what a lot of interesting stuff there seems to be, to read and digest….I do miss LJ when I am out of town, though I can do without email or anything else…and I do miss being able to post my pictures “as and when”…I don’t want to sit in some parlour, so I end up having to wait till I get home.

Here are two birds that I loved watching in Kodai. One was a mother PIED BUSHCHAT …here she is, flying off from the rubber tree near her cottage to find food…

I enjoyed watching her and her baby, very near our cottage; here’s the collage of the bird, the baby asking for food, the mother going off to get it, and coming back to say, in typical “Mommy” style, “now open your mouth, for goodness’ sake!”

And here’s the LITTLE GREBE…a single family, with two chicks, which managed to find food even amongst the crowds of tourists on the lake.

Here, first, are the beautiful babies, swimming along…

Here’s the adult, catching a fish on the lake, you can see the war going on:

And here’s the successful predator:

And here’s the adult with the baby nearby, I posted this to INW with the title, “Put breakfast on our bill”….

I managed to see both the Kodaikanal-famous birds…..ORANGE-AND-BLACK FLYCATCHER and the LAUGHING THRUSH on the last evening, quite close to the lake, but when I had no camera with me, and to use the golf jargon that I have been exposed to for the past week, that’s par for the course!

Next, the “paravai kAvadi” (the penance of the bird) festival at the Kodai mAriamman temple….must upload the video to Flickr now….