An Outdoors Expedition with Rahul Alvares

Trying to get a hold of ‘Birds of Goa’ led me right to the photographer of the book, wildlife expert, Rahul Alvares.

We decided to do something special and ask Rahul to guide us through a birdwatching, woods exposure, herping trip.  Herping, he said was best in the monsoons but he would be willing to take us birdwatching and show us some of the snakes he had recently rescued from various homes before releasing them in the wild.

It was still dark when we set out for North Goa.  We could see the faintest touch of dawn in the eastern sky and by the time we reached Porvorim, the sun was out in all it’s bright, Goa splendor!

We followed Rahul through some very narrow, winding and steep roads to the Socorro Plateau.  He gave each of us an amazing pair of binoculars.  The air was cool and filled with the chirp, call and twitter of different birds.  The first bird we saw was an Asian Koel.  The brilliant yellow of the Golden Hooded Oriole was hard to miss!  We saw Blue Tailed Bee Eaters, Kingfishers, Barbets, gorgeous Racquet Tailed Drongos, Parakeets, Ioras, Prinias, Minivets,  flitting Sunbirds and even a beautiful Leaf bird.  Unfortunately I have no pictures of the birds, they were too far away but beautifully up close to our binocular view.  It felt like we were in the tree with them!  Brandon struggled with the bird watching. His glasses kept getting in the way (poor guy) and he couldn’t focus in right without his eyes hurting or his vision blurring but Adam, Ria and I were enthralled by the colors and the beauty of these sweet feathered creatures.

At the top of the plateau, we saw a fairly rare spotted eagle and when he flew away, he showed off his huge wing span.  My favorite was the bright flashing Minvet and a teeny tiny Prinia that perched at the top of a dry branch, fluffed out his chest and sang with full gusto for the longest time.  I thought he must bring so much cheer to his creator and it filled my own heart with praise.

Apparently the tall grass on the plateau is often burned so it was dry and the rock was black.  Massive millipedes lay dead.  I photographed some of these but later found curled corpses twice the size.  Yikes!

This ant hill was quite an elaborate castle

We saw what looked like wasp nests in the trees and Rahul told us that they were ant nests.  The ants chew the bark of the trees into a pulp and then engineer this cool looking home.  He said not to attempt disturbing it.  Apparently they have suicide bombers that dive down and find you and punish you rather sorely for messing with them.  We heeded his advise and stayed clear!

Next, Rahul let us watch him do some snake handling.  It was very impressive and I’ll let the photographs speak for themselves.  (Sorry they are not in order.  Ria helped me with adding them to the blog and so I am going to leave it as is.)  The scariest of all was the venomous Russell’s Viper.  We instinctively backed up as many paces as we could without having to step into the bushes behind.  We were pretty shocked to find out that India has the highest snake bite fatalities in the world!

Skin that the snake shed which was carefully preserved as a souvenir (NOT for Mom!)

Rahul handling the Whittaker Boa

Brandon holding the Whitaker Boa

Spectacled Cobra set free

Ria touching the Python

Brandon and Adam touching the python

Adam holding the Whittaker Boa

Rahul handling the Python

A Rat Snake

The Russel Viper all curled up

A Rat Snake.  This one was a vibrant Lamborghini yellow

The Whitaker Boa again

Feisty Painted Bronzeback Tree snake

The Russel Viper warming up. Notice that we are as far away as possible!

Escorting the Cobra to freedom

Painted Bronzeback Tree snake up clo

Just for the record, Rahul  has also published two other books, Free From School – that he wrote when he was sixteen after his parents let him take a year off from school to follow his dream of snake handling.  His other book is Tales of Snakes.  Very engaging and funny – except that I have to take a marker to a few swear words that I rather wish he had *** rather than spelled out! But I would definitely get them again.  His photographs for his and Heinz Laimer’s Birds of Goa are truly beautiful!  These books can be purchased here.

The snake handling was incredible!

We so enjoyed our day with Rahul and send out a huge thank you for making our outdoors trip not only very learning but extremely enjoyable!