Payangadi, Kannur Dist. KERALA. IN

This small town in the Northern District of Kannur in Kerala plays host a great

variety of ecosystems and hence plant, bird and insect life.

I thought I'll start this post with an image of our common House Crows (Corvus splendens) . Strangely I find myself in Europe even missing these guys.

The small hillock (of mainly volcanic rock) around which the whole town sprawls is an amazing place to watch birds. The wide grassland like habitat attracts a lot of birds. Above aWire-tailed Swallow (Hirundo smithii) minus its famous wire-tail.

The hillock called MadaiPara is a great place to view two species of Lapwings - Red-wattled Lapwing (Vanellus indicus) on the left; Yellow-wattled Lapwing (Vanellus malabaricus) on the right

And down the hill on one side is the nice backwaters of North-Kerala, and as you could imagine yet another great place for birding. Here's a Little Cormorant (Phalacrocorax niger)

An Adult and Juvenile Brahminy Kite (Haliastur Indus)

And lastly from here the Purple Heron (Ardea purpurea)

And this pair of Loten's Sunbird (Cinnyris lotenius) I found two days ago in my garden at home in Calicut. It seems to me that this species of Sunbird is the most common in Calicut city and it's surroundings.