With Iristu in Southern Gujarat (Jamwari, Friday, December 12, 2003)
Having watched Altynai for a few days, we set off to find another of our "backpacked" storks - Iristu. We are some 60 kilometres south of Rajkot, at the Jamwari reservoir. Iristu's company includes two other black storks, many painted storks, almost thirty common cranes and thousands of wintering coots, ducks and charadriiformes. You can get the idea of what Jamwari looks like from the photo (Iristu himself is in the front; when Khalil develops the negatives, we will have much better pictures, but the digital camera can't produce anything better at the moment).
The landscape is quite varied around here. There are rocky places with nothing but dry grass, acacias and huge Euphorbias, elsewhere there are cotton plantations. Before arriving in Jamwari, we visited another place that Iristu frequents, as the satellites show - the Puldjer reservoir. We found seven black storks there...
Navigation is somewhat difficult around here. Viru, a communicative local from the Maldhari tribe, helped us a lot today. Riding a motorbike, he showed us the quickest routes.
To be continued... :)